ActiveEngine

That’s The Cool Stuff We’ll Be Doing on the Mission Together January 14, 2008

“The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.” – Bertrand Russell

If you head over to ProjectManagement411.com Bob has started a conversation focused on how a Project Management Office (PMO) can assist with describing your domain of problems. This got me thinking about how difficult it can be to clearly define the goals of a domain in terms that all teams involved can understand.

I went to the archives at DotNetRocks, and listened to the Eric Evans interview concerning Domain Driven Design and Domain Specific Languages. Right off the bat Eric said, and I am paraphrasing, “Developers usually bring the the mindset to the table of ‘how can I use web services or design patterns to solve this problem for my customer’. What is needed is better understanding of the customer’s problems.”

If you think about what he is saying, then Domain Specific Languages can only be produced after the development team are experts in the business unit’s subject matter. Taken further, a Domain Specific Language, or even the size of the domain that the developers are attempting to model may need to be reduced drastically, as the customers business processes may not be mature enough for such finite detail. And consider the other end of the spectrum where the problem domain is very mature, and the development team is attempting to recreate the wheel just so that the problems fits the solution paradigm.

A practitioner of ActiveEngine will chose the course that aligns the interest of the clients first. You must have mastery of the client’s subject matter FIRST, and be conversant in their language before you work your magic. Remember, if they don’t understand you, they may pay much attention.