An agile modeling session is a focused, collaborative session where team members create models together to explore a problem, design a solution, or build shared understanding.
The key word is together. This isnât one person going off to create a model and presenting it to the team. Itâs the team thinking visually, in real time, at a whiteboard.
How a modeling session works:
- Gather the right people â the people who understand the domain and the people who will build the solution. Usually 2-5 people.
- Pick a focus â donât try to model everything. Choose a specific problem, feature, or architectural concern.
- Timebox it â 30-90 minutes is the sweet spot. Long enough to make progress, short enough to stay focused.
- Use simple tools â whiteboard and markers, sticky notes, index cards. The lower the fidelity, the faster the iteration.
- Model as a team â everyone contributes. Rotate whoâs drawing. Challenge each otherâs assumptions.
- Keep it rough â the goal is understanding, not documentation. Messy diagrams that everyone understands beat polished diagrams that nobody contributed to.
Types of things you might model:
- Domain concepts and their relationships
- User flows and interactions
- Data structures and schema
- Architecture and component interactions
- Process flows and state machines
When youâre done, take a photo of the whiteboard. Thatâs your documentation. If the model needs to persist, transcribe the essential parts. Most of the value was in the conversation, not the artifact.
Related: Look-Ahead Modeling, Model Storming