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Why?

Map the domain that your product will be part of, so you know the key concepts and the relations between them.

How?

Talk to stakeholders in the field, and iteratively create a conceptual model of the domain in which the concepts and relations are as clear (or formal) as possible. Make sure to look at the domain from different angles.

Ingredients

• One, or preferably multiple, knowledgeable stakeholders.
• A technique for capturing the domain in a model, possibly the UML class diagram.
• Eagerness to find partial solutions developed by others.
• Sufficient time to go through several iterations.

In practice

One of the first steps in an analysis is often the creation of a domain model: once you know you understand the domain, you can perform subsequent steps.

Phase(s) of use

In the following project phase(s) domain modelling can be used:

• Analysis