Patterns, Principles, and Practices of Domain-Driven Design

7 Context Mapping

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Why the context map is vital for strategic design
• Understanding model relationships between bounded contexts
• The organizational relationship patterns between teams and contexts
• Effective ways to communicate a context map

In large and complex applications, multiple models in context collaborate to fulfill the requirements and behaviors of a system. A single team may not own all of the various sub components of a system, some will be existing legacy code that is the responsibility of a different team, and other components will be provided by third parties that will have no knowledge of the clients that will consume its functionality. Teams that don’t have a good understanding of the different contexts within a system, and their relationships to one another, run the risk of compromising the models at play when integrating bounded contexts. Lines between models can become blurred resulting in a Big Ball of Mud if teams don’t explicitly map and understand relationships between contexts.

The technical details of contexts within systems are not the only force that can hamper the success of a project. Organizational relationships between the teams that are responsible for contexts can also have a big impact on the outcome of a project. Often, teams that manage other contexts are not motivated by the same forces, or they have different priorities. For projects to succeed, teams usually need to manage changes in these situations at a political ...