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Reposted by Kenny (Baas) Schwegler

Andrew Harmel-Law @andrewhl.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Its the Stories of Facilitating Software Architecture and Design Anniversary! 🎂🎉

Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 02/09/2026

21 guests plus nine practitioners at DDD Europe made that case better than the three of us could. Thanks to Andrea, Andrew, and every guest. virtualddd.com/stories-on-f...

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 02/09/2026

Four architects drawing four different diagrams of the same system. A sponsor's goal contradicting the team's 48 hours before kickoff. That's all architecture and design work.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 02/09/2026

It's also why this work is broader than most people assume. Stories about a developer resigning after a well-intended improvement session. 200 hand-copied scripts handed over on a laptop before a holiday. Mapping ending a methodology war on HS2.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 02/09/2026

And acting on that guess has never been cheaper. Generating code costs almost nothing now, so you can build on an assumption nobody checked and have it running before anyone notices. What hasn't gotten cheaper is the conversation that would have caught it.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 02/09/2026

The shared understanding you build in those conversations is where we find out which properties your architecture has to protect while it evolves. Without it we are guessing at what matters, and complexity does not forgive guessing.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 02/09/2026

We spend less time alone with the code and more time in conversation with the people who know what the system is actually for. That gets treated as a soft skill we pick up along the way, which it isn't.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 02/09/2026

We didn't start it to publish content. We started it because the work engineers are being asked to do is changing, and most people are working that out on their own.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 02/09/2026

A year ago today, @roundcrisis.com, @andrewhl.bsky.social and I published the first episode of Stories on Facilitating Software Architecture & Design. Yesterday episode 27 went out. We've kept it going every two weeks since.

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Reposted by Kenny (Baas) Schwegler

Virtual Domain-Driven Design @virtualddd.com · 01/09/2026

One person's holiday laptop full of scripts turned into 200 "custom" reports (really 5 templates in disguise). @kathrynhempstalk shared how getting data out was never designed for — and cost… Read, watch, or listen: buff.ly/Xl58fZe

virtualddd.com

Getting Data Out: The Requirement Nobody Designed For

Getting data out of an application is a first-class design problem. Learn how one team replaced 200 hand-copied scripts with templates, and what it cost.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 31/08/2026

already invalided your aggegrate!

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 31/08/2026

Bullocks, so you have never eaten bitterballen? Or Gouda Cheese? Or hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles) on bread?

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 30/08/2026

@nick-tune.me I know you like Ananas aka Pineapple on pizza. But have you tried this dutch person's recipe of Banana and pineapple pasta with Curryy Pineapple sauce?

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Reposted by Kenny (Baas) Schwegler

Virtual Domain-Driven Design @virtualddd.com · 28/08/2026

One week out: Marco Schneider and Martin Günther explore how linguistic cues can surface types collaboratively, before the model calcifies, rather than being bolted on after the fact. Register: buff.ly/xfbsKCb

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 27/08/2026

I feel like we are doing the same in the Netherlands. The farmers are asking for compensation for the drought... But I am wondering if most of them ever voted for a party to counter this sustainable. I mean we were only warmed what, since the 70's? Maybe earlier?

static.klipy.com

This Is Fine Meme

ALT: This Is Fine Meme

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Reposted by Kenny (Baas) Schwegler

Virtual Domain-Driven Design @virtualddd.com · 27/08/2026

Good ideas in software delivery often sound wrong at first, which is why teams reject them before giving them a chance. Hibri's session explored why our intuition misleads us so… Watch: buff.ly/0wvhkbO

virtualddd.com

Decoding the Paradoxes of Software Delivery

Why does deploying more often improve quality? Why does slack time make a team more reliable? On the counter-intuitive ideas that keep turning out to be right.

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Reposted by Kenny (Baas) Schwegler

Virtual Domain-Driven Design @virtualddd.com · 26/08/2026

Anyone who has run a workshop that mattered knows the room is the easy part. Read, listen or watch Katie Clark's full story here: virtualddd.com/facilitating...

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 20/08/2026

And then collaboratively improving your architecture through the interaction it has with that user, the organisation and the teams building it.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 20/08/2026

AI came up once across both days, and only to say that none of this gets easier to skip. The hard part has always been building a shared understanding of the user, their needs and the market they are in.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 20/08/2026

Two routes into the same territory, and each route came from where the group already was. A framework would have failed both of them.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 20/08/2026

We finished with a stressor analysis from Barry O'Reilly's Residuality Theory, which opened up complexity and why understanding the strategy, the landscape and the market is what lets an architecture survive significant changes it was never designed for.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 20/08/2026

Then user needs mapping on top of it, team structures against the value chain, reliability engineering and threat modelling, all on one map, one landscape.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 20/08/2026

The second group had already done that work. What they were missing was the landscape those decisions get made in, so we started with @swardley.bsky.social Wardley Mapping and where users, their needs and the market sit within it.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 20/08/2026

We closed that day with Team Topologies and team interaction modelling. Designing a software system means designing how your teams interact.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 20/08/2026

The first group had not worked through what architecture means in their own context yet. So we started from the significant decisions that shape a system, put that system in its sociotechnical context, and looked at why behaviour matters when you design systems.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 20/08/2026

Two companies, two days, and Evelyn van Kelle and I ran them differently because they are at different points in their learning journey.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 20/08/2026

We spent two days training architects and tech leads and never gave them a definition of architecture. That was deliberate. There is no settled definition, and that is a large part of why architecture frameworks travel so badly from one organisation to the next.

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Reposted by Kenny (Baas) Schwegler

Virtual Domain-Driven Design @virtualddd.com · 19/08/2026

Told she needed grey hair to be taken seriously as a facilitator, Katie Clark leaned into it instead of fighting it. Real workshop prep happens in corridors, not rooms. She shared this story. Read, watch, or listen: buff.ly/Z5eaxJK

virtualddd.com

Workshop Preparation: The Real Work Happens Before

Workshop preparation is where facilitation is won or lost. Katie Clark on consent-based invites, co-facilitation tandems, and using the IKEA effect.

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Reposted by Kenny (Baas) Schwegler

Virtual Domain-Driven Design @virtualddd.com · 12/08/2026

We often assume that once a team has a diagram, they have a shared understanding. It's only when someone starts asking basic questions that the diagram starts to fall apart. Read, Listen or Watch more of @vanessaformicola.bsky.social her story: buff.ly/aOIQ7uj

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Reposted by Kenny (Baas) Schwegler

Virtual Domain-Driven Design @virtualddd.com · 10/08/2026

Getting from domain talk to a "good" model is hard—DDD's patterns show the destination, not the journey, especially with experts who can't read code. Marco Schneider and Martin Günther share a… Get info & RSVP: buff.ly/csI1ZY2

virtualddd.com

Collaborative Data Modeling with Domain Experts

DDD names the tactical patterns but not the path to them, and domain experts cannot read code. Learn a sticky-note technique for hearing types in domain…

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Reposted by Kenny (Baas) Schwegler

Virtual Domain-Driven Design @virtualddd.com · 06/08/2026

Cloud unreachable, warehouses dark, thousands of orders mid-fulfillment: what keeps logistics running when a national blackout hits? Emilio Carrión shared how offline-first architecture and post-outage reconciliation kept Mercadona Online alive… Listen as a podcast: buff.ly/fsG3Dqn

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Surviving a National Blackout with Offline-First Architecture | Emilio Carrión

Quickly and easily listen to Virtual Domain-driven design for free!

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Reposted by Kenny (Baas) Schwegler

Virtual Domain-Driven Design @virtualddd.com · 06/08/2026

Modelling a domain in code often drifts from the actual business logic. This hands-on session dug into functional domain modelling in practice, keeping types and behaviour honest. Watch: buff.ly/hOvWEbC

buff.ly

[DDDDD-20] Functional Domain Modelling in Practice

A hands-on workshop on functional domain modelling: using a type system to make invalid states unrepresentable and get feedback straight from the code.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 05/08/2026

Most introductions to DDD start with bounded contexts. Ours starts by asking whether DDD is aimed at a problem you actually have, and gives you twenty minutes to find out. What would your step three be?

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Reposted by Kenny (Baas) Schwegler

Virtual Domain-Driven Design @virtualddd.com · 05/08/2026

Broken things at work keep breaking, and we rarely have the language for why. @trond.hjorteland.com introduces Open Systems Theory, then we diagnose real dysfunctions live, together. Get info & RSVP: buff.ly/H580ohp

virtualddd.com

Organisational Dysfunctions and Open Systems Theory

Most teams can list what is broken at work but lack a language for why it keeps recurring. Trond Hjorteland diagnoses real dysfunctions using Open Systems…

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

Wel they are a bit sociotechnical, improve one should improve the other. But these examples are all about examples how challanging it can be, and depending on the people we adjust language, facilitation style... etc etc. That is what the stories are about! Finding these patterns :)

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

You can both have your own story if you want! I am sure you have loads of them. let's plan it!

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

Bring the pineapple, and they will come. ON another topic, what do you think of this new and improve Learn DDD: virtualddd.com/learn/

static.klipy.com

Pineapple Worship Ritual

ALT: Pineapple Worship Ritual

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

What do you mean by fair? I had a CEO who found it was fair that "Whatever options you put down IS NOT how it works, let me tell you how it goes. This is a waste of time". To that person, fair was what he thought the process should be, just build. The CTO wanted the EventStorming, btw.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

Someone might think we already discussed this; why are you proposing finding other options, so my option is not good enough? We already spend so much time, this is a waste of time. (I have had this in a session, unaware what happenend before the sessions). So how do you know for sure?

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

Some people like to be led, some people need time to think. Some people are new and are afraid to speak up (social norming).......supressing sounds big, it is not. Everytime someone withholds knowledge for any (good) reason is supression. The question is, how harmfull is it for the outcome.....

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

If there is consent, sure agreed. In most design sessions (which include my own) all these shadows get in the way. Any decision made over others (how can we know for sure people consent??) suppress knowledge. The question is, how harmfull is it for the design session.....

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

Agreed, same, I try to withhold as much meaning and definition as possible OR my new thing the complete opposite with generic part theory to getting out of functional fixedness. And once we found alignment I might use concepts and patterns when needed to analyse further....

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

Yes exactly my point in: bsky.app/profile/kenn...

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

Yes, and that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, or people not having those needs. If people have needs, preventing it from happen often turn into supressing those needs. Not having it happen does not mean it is not there. All needs have to be heard and supported....

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

Curious whether anyone has come across good work on the other side of this, on design being more effective in ambiguity. I've found plenty on why we close early and much less on what staying open actually buys you.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

The other half is reading when the not knowing has done its work, when something new is starting to form, and closing there. That balance is a skill and it gets better with practice. Anyone can pick it up. What doesn't work is assuming someone will.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

What I've stopped doing is trying to resolve it. And holding the discomfort is only half of it. Hold it too long and the group is just tired.

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Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 04/08/2026

This isn't only a software thing. There's decent psychology on why people reach for an early answer under uncertainty, and on how the first example you see constrains everything after. Different fields, same pull.

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