Starting out with Domain-Driven Design (DDD) can feel overwhelming. There are so many workshops, techniques, and concepts to explore. Where do you begin? And once you've started, where do you go next?
At ddd.academy, we think about DDD in three interconnected circles: Domain Discovery, Strategic DDD, and Tactical DDD. These are not rigid phases you follow in a straight line. They are a cycle you move through repeatedly as you deepen your understanding and transform that knowledge into your system design and into your code.
Learning Domain-Driven Design works similar: you can start out with learning about Tactical DDD because you are a software developer, and then you can move to Domain Discovery to learn about collaboration with the business.
The Three Circles
Domain Discovery
Before you can design anything, you need to understand the problem space. Domain Discovery is about uncovering what's actually happening in a business: how processes work, how the company works, where the friction lies, and how people think about their work.
Workshops in this circle focus on collaborative modelling techniques that help teams make sense of complex domains together.
EventStorming and Domain Storytelling are the most prominent examples. Workshops such as Knowledge Flow and Thinking in Systems fit here too, because they help you understand how socio-technical systems are structured and how knowledge flows through an organisation.
Workshops here include:
Strategic DDD
Once you have a clearer picture of the domain you are working in, you can start making strategic decisions. Strategic DDD is about looking across your entire system: identifying Bounded Contexts, deciding how they communicate with each other, and aligning your software strategy with your business.
Workshops here include:
- Strategic Domain-Driven Design
- Advanced Software Architecture with Residuality
- Software Architecture: The Hard Parts
- Architecture for Flow
- Strategic Integration Design with DDD
- Domain-Driven Transformation
Tactical DDD
Once you understand the strategic shape of your system, you can go deeper into what happens inside a single Bounded Context. Tactical DDD is about the patterns you use in code: Aggregates, Repositories, Domain Events, and the design of your domain model at the implementation level.
Workshops here include:
- Domain-Driven Design in Your Favourite Language
- Implement Tactical Patterns
- CQRS and Event Sourcing sit primarily in this circle too, because they shape the internal architecture of a single Bounded Context, even though they touch on event-driven approaches that can span bounded contexts.
It Is a Cycle, Not a Staircase
It might be tempting to treat these three circles as a strict learning sequence: first do Domain Discovery, then Strategic DDD, then Tactical DDD, and you're done. In practice, it doesn't work that way.
People come into contact with Domain-Driven Design in many different ways. The most likely one being the current role you have at your company. If you are a software developer, chances are you hear about the tactical patterns. When you change roles, other parts of Domain-Driven Design will be more interesting for you. If you become a senior developer, you might want to learn more about Domain Discovery. if you become an architect, you might want to dive into Strategic DDD.
This is entirely normal. In fact, it's the sign of a healthy learning process. Just as applying Domain-Driven Design, each pass through the cycle deepens your understanding. You will find advise on each workshop page on which next workshop would be best.
How to Use This Framework
The three circles give you a way to orient yourself at any point in your journey. If you have just completed a workshop, you can ask:
- Do I want to go deeper in the same area? Look for workshops that dive further into the concepts you've just encountered.
- Do I want to broaden my perspective? Look for workshops in one of the other circles.
- Have I been focused on Strategic DDD and want to see how it connects to code? Move into Tactical DDD.
- Have I been working tactically and feel like the bigger picture is unclear? Go back to Domain Discovery or Strategic DDD.
There is no wrong next step. What matters is that you keep moving and apply what you learn along the way.
What's Next?
On each workshop page at ddd.academy, you will find a "What's Next?" section with links to workshops we recommend as a natural next step. These suggestions are tailored to what you have just learned and point you towards the circle you might want to explore next.
Whether you want to go broader, go deeper, or bridge from discovery to design to delivery, there is always a clear path forward.