Metis Methodology: The Journey from Acceptable to Exceptional
WHAT'S METIS?Traditional Software Development
• Takes a Long Time
Weeks, months, quarters, …
• Costs a Lot
Hard and soft (e.g. opportunity) costs
• Produces Acceptable Not Exceptional Results
MVP is the starting line, not the finish line
Monolith > components > N-tier with SDLC
Service-oriented (SOA) > microservices > containers with Agile
Requirements, analysis, design, build, test, deploy, manage
Ideas and agreements imperfectly expressed, fidelity lost and “noise” introduced in analysis and design, design imperfectly understood and implemented in development, …
What Is “Metis”?
“Athena is famous for being the backer of Odysseus, who, let’s not forget, is the guy who comes up with the idea for the Trojan Horse. Athena guides both Odysseus and Heracles through their struggles, and although both of these guys are excellent fighters, they win most of their battles through cunning or (less pejoratively) metis.”
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson [my emphasis]
What Is “Architecture”?
Architecture: The creation and consistent application of proven solutions to design requirements and problems within a given domain
Doug Wilson, Defining Architecture
Architects focus on what things really are (ontology) and how they relate to each other or (put another way) where they belong in a consistent, useful structure (taxonomy).
Key Technical Design Characteristics
A Career In Modeling
A new model-based way of looking at what actually makes up our information systems and how these things fit together in an optimal configuration
Business Domains & Entities
Business entities are models (abstractions) that represent the persons, places, and things (the “nouns”) that our information systems are intended to manage and how they relate to each other.
Domains are logical groups of entities related by purpose, specialization, expertise, etc.
Examples: Persons, Organizations, Employees, etc
Business Processes
Business processes models represent the series of discrete steps, entity and third-party service interactions, calculations, and logical branching that are followed to bring about a desired outcome. They are the “verbs” that orchestrate entities.
Example: RegisterInformationSystemUser
Business Decisions
Business decisions are the “rules” that inform and constrain processes. These can range from simple, static decision models to complex, dynamic machine learning models.
Example: NumberOfSearchResultsToPrompt
Building on Global Standards
Standards are the expression of proven solutions, which we intend to apply consistently to design requirements and problems.
Business Domains & Entities
A rich entity-relationship diagram (ERD) modeling standard that I’ve developed over the past 15+ years.
Business Processes
BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) 2.0
Business Decisions
DMN (Decision Model and Notation) 1.3
How Does Metis Work?
Our Systems Should Encourage Not Penalize Us for Learning & Improving
Model-Based Communication, Insight & Automation
- Common Visual Language Enabling More Clarity
- Elevated Focus on Models Rather Than Code
- Rich, Standard Resource Possibilities Everywhere for Free*
- Quick, Easy Model Changes Reduce “Friction” & Time to Value (TTV)
- Know Which Processes Run Most, Take the Most Time, Etc
Consistently High Quality
- Ensure Engineering Best Practices Everywhere
- Minimize Defects Through Automated Asset Generation & Deployment
- Improved Structural Consistency – UI, APIs, Services, Data Structures
Business Agility
- Business Self-Service Capabilities – process workflow and decision definition and management
- Easy experimentation and A/B/n testing
- Consistent operational metrics about every aspect of our business
- Comprehensive, up-to-date system, entity, process, and decision documentation