To design an effective software solution, we have to grasp at least the basic knowledge of the business domain. As we discussed in Chapter 1, this knowledge belongs to domain experts: it’s their job to specialize in and comprehend all the intricacies of the business domain. By no means should we, nor can we, become domain experts. That said, it’s crucial for us to understand domain experts and to use the same business terminology they use.

To be effective, the software has to mimic the domain experts’ way of thinking about the problem—their mental models. Without an understanding of the business prob‐ lem and the reasoning behind the requirements, our solutions will be limited to “translating” business requirements into source code. What if the requirements miss a crucial edge case? Or fail to describe a business concept, limiting our ability to imple‐ ment a model that will support future requirements?

As Alberto Brandolini1 says, software development is a learning process; working code is a side effect. A software project’s success depends on the effectiveness of knowledge sharing between domain experts and software engineers. We have to understand the problem in order to solve it.

Effective knowledge sharing between domain experts and software engineers requires effective communication. Let’s take a look at the common impediments to effective communication in software projects.