3.5 Modeling
Engineering models eliminate mistakes & complexity, ensure better testing & reliability, and improve collaboration & understanding.
Your modeling style is a complex topic. Accordingly, I recommend you read these two companion articles before diving in: Applying marble & sequence diagrams and Using “declarative thinking” to establish stronger controls.
Introduction
This activity creates fidelity in our engineering models — the diagrams and specifications that give us enough technical depth so we can proceed to coding.
Everything we’re going to build should be modeled. That might sound like of lot of work, but with the right drawings and specification style, it’s not — plus, our models should be reusable. For instance, once I’ve modeled my implementation of a circuit breaker, I don’t have to model it again. I can just use that circuit breaker design everywhere I need it.
The approach I’ll introduce here increases the fidelity of your technical designs using data inputs and outputs, paired with very clear and specific functional results. It builds on your existing engineering artifacts and further validates your value stream, making sure alignment with business objectives is maintained. We capture our control processes and at the same time enhance communication among those designing the solution.
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One of the challenges with modeling is deciding on what’s effective yet not overly constraining or complex. We want to define some clear standards of practice and make sure the engineered product is fit for purpose. At the same time, teams should have the flexibility to take a different path if that different path is more fit for purpose.
The modeling approach we use in the Delivery Playbook meets those goals:
We define engineering artifacts using two specific diagram types, neither of which are difficult to understand or use.
Clear objectives are defined while giving teams enough freedom to follow a different path — so long as those objectives are met using whatever approach they choose to follow.
