Posted by admin on 5/7/2011 4:31 PM | Comments (0)

Great question. Most stakeholders would be delighted that you are seeking to distill down your core domain. Not that they would express it in DDD terms, but rather that want to see that development effort is being apportioned appropriately according to the business strategy.

One approach would be to start by writing out the major business capabilities you are trying to achieve with each project. Put each one on a sticky note, and assign it to a quadrant in the Purpose Alignment Model.

Try to mark each capability according to the approach you are taking - are you currently treating each as core domain, supporting subdomain, or generic subdomain? Look for inconsistencies. For example, do you have business capabilities in the Maintenance quadrant? I would recommend killing all custom software development in this quadrant. Outsource those capabilities as soon as possible. Don't waste time on custom development. Don't waste time trying to support those capabilities at all.

Do you have parity capabilities that you are trying to implement using a core domain approach? Over-investment! Look for ways to use open source or 3rd party tools for generic subdomains. Hire contractors, and free up your in-house developers for supporting subdomains.

Do you have differentiating business capabilities that are not mission critical for your business that you are currently doing in-house? Find a business partner that excels at these. Ask for recommendations - who in the industry is best at this? Approach them about collaborating on a solution.

Like many development divisions/teams, you may be drowning in parity work. Trying to be too creative in your software development efforts for supporting subdomains and doing custom development for generic subdomains will leave little time for creativity in the core domain. Do everything you can to eliminate waste in your project portfolio by aligning effort and innovation to purpose. If you could reduce the amount of parity work on supporting and generic subdomains even a small amount, this would start to free up time, talent and energy to focus on your core domain.

 

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