We like to believe that if we do everything right — bring in proven methods, hire experienced people, build the feedback loops — then the system will eventually bend toward better. Marco Heimeshoff spent years inside a company doing exactly that, and watching it fail anyway. Not because EventStorming, context mapping, or domain storytelling were the wrong tools. But because the real problem was somewhere none of those methods could reach.

This is what Marco calls a "graveyard story" — the kind he usually pushes under the rug. Through a multi-year transformation, his team improved the architecture, introduced agile feedback loops, and brought in collaborative modeling. Things kept getting better in parts, and kept failing as a whole. The EventStorming sessions made the dysfunction transparent, but transparency wasn't welcome everywhere. For some people in the room, asking "what can we improve next week?" didn't feel like progress. It felt like an attack. As Marco puts it, "feedback becomes violence" — and he slowly realised that, with the best intentions, he had been walking "through a culture with an ax," hurting people who never wanted the change in the first place.

A colleague's introduction to spiral dynamics gave him a language for it: not everyone in a system wants to improve it. Some want to keep it alive, because it gives them belonging and identity. And above all of it sat a boss who said yes to everything, sat at the back of every session with a quiet smirk, and quietly commissioned the company's most revenue-critical software outside the entire process — telling that developer not to talk to Marco's team.

This conversation is about the limits of method, and the power facilitators hold without realising it. We dig into why a sponsor's mandate isn't the same as the team's, why psychological safety is necessary but not sufficient without intrinsic motivation to change, and what it really means to meet a system where it is rather than where you wish it were.

Key Discussion Points

• [00:00] The Graveyard Story: Marco opens a multi-year engagement he usually keeps buried — where everything improved except the thing that mattered
• [02:00] EventStorming Makes It Visible: The sessions surface buried relationships and dynamics that sticky notes can't make safe to break
• [03:30] When Feedback Becomes Violence: Why "what can we improve?" lands as a positive for some and an identity attack for others
• [05:30] An Ax Through the Culture: Marco's uncomfortable realisation that he was hurting people who never asked for his help
• [06:30] Context Mapping the Culture: Using bounded contexts to map mindsets — and why people read it as being put in a corner
• [09:30] The Boss Who Said Yes and Meant No: The smirk at the back of the room, and the revenue-critical software built in secret
• [14:30] How He Knew It Was Cultural: Working through technology, feedback, communication, and method before spiral dynamics named the real problem
• [19:30] Safe and Motivated: Why safety removes a blocker but never creates the desire to change
• [20:00] What He'd Do Differently: Leave earlier, get a real mandate, and meet the system where it actually is
• [23:30] Heuristics for the Pain: Keep your heuristic list short, observe the non-interaction, run small controlled experiments, and hold space — "shut the f*** up" and let people think

Guest: Marco Heimeshoff Hosts: Kenny Schwegler, Andrea Magnorsky, Andrew Harmel-Law

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Stories from Designers

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and Architects Doing Facilitation We

always try to get the name wrong I was

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just thinking about this one but today we

have Marco hypes off with us who's gonna

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tell us a story about his experience from

the past So Marco Thank you for coming

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Marco Heimeshoff (he/him):

Thank you Kenny.

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So, I wanted to give you a story, from the

very bottom of my heart, like a company

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that I was, accompanying for many years.

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And, after we did like a

long transformation from

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a technical perspective.

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Going from, from, very imperative

programming, very uncoordinated

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to different architecture styles,

object oriented programming,

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even introducing some functional

programming for the domain and so on.

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introducing agile feedback

loops and, and whatnot.

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So it was a really, a cultural

overhaul of the whole company

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over longer period of time.

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realizing at some point

that what was missing is the

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collaborative modeling part.

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So no matter what we optimized

it still failed and failed and

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keep on, keep kept on failing.

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for me, like in the middle

of the whole transformation.

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I realized that all these

failings, even though they looked

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different in their signals, they

all felt like the same thing.

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It's always we get wrong what the

customer actually needed, and it

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failed in different ways because

of different, you know, all the

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things we optimized before, but.

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It's, we never really

delivered what they needed.

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And then we started doing domain driven

design at some point, and that's when

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the collaborative modeling kicked in.

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So we are like, okay, we need to

be, get better at this and we need

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to introduce like ways to, to, get

people to talk to each other and.

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It seemed to work for quite a long while.

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So we started with simple things like,

just a impromptu modeling session, just

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talking about the ubiquitous language,

figuring out which bounded context exists.

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So starting from the architecture

that's already there, which is

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always an easy start, right?

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We had the mandate from the developers.

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So the programmers were all in

and said, let's do the thing.

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So we looked at the architecture and

the modules that existed in the code

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and extracted a context map from there.

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And then introduced that to the, to

the product people and said, look,

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this is, this is the structure we see.

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Sorry.

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Is that how you see the business as well?

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And then they were like, yes, yes, this

looks good, but we need one more here.

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And you realize like, no, no.

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They're thinking in software module still.

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Like they're trying to tell us

the solution, like we need a new.

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Thing that they can click

over there is like, okay, this

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transformation took quite a while.

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And even though, and then this is

now, this is all the still fun part,

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but the, the hard part came when we

were at a level where we realized.

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Oh, we are having the buy-in from

everyone now, like product was all in.

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The boss of the company was

like super happy about us

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doing collaborative modeling.

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We did event storming sessions and

the first few were like a bit awkward

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because everybody knew each other, right?

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There was already some cultural,

used being used to things and, and

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there were certain relationships that

were already baked and deep into the

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company that wouldn't change anymore.

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Most likely.

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So there were people hating each other,

other people being like, comrades.

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And, and you can feel this in the event

storming, but the event storming made

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these things not safe to break because

again, culture was deeply ingrained,

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but it made things very transparent and

you could feel where it's off, where

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people don't really go deep into details.

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And we used the signal to

then go, Hey, okay, let's talk

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to these people in private.

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Let's figure out what happened here.

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And.

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More and more and more we introduced

like open feedback loops and tried to

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make it more psychologically safe and

said, look, let's have a conversation

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about this and feedback things and how

did you feel in this session, right?

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And what went good?

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What went wrong?

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Do you think these models are all

equally valid in their quality?

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And so on?

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And that's when we realized

the very first problem.

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With cultural alignment.

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So all the technology and all the

methods we used, they helped in areas

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and they made the models better.

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But some core problem never got away.

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And this feeling was icky.

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And during a feedback session, I realized

if you have a green mindset, if you are

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an egalitarian and you think like, hey,

self-improvement is great and collective

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and collaborative improvement is great.

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Like this is what we're here for, right?

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We strive to become better as a group,

to better ourselves and humanity.

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If you wanna go the Star Trek

route, like this is amazing.

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But if you have a conservative mindset,

which is not necessarily negative, it

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often sounds that way from green thinking

people, but if you have a conservative

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mindset, things are good the way they are.

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Like, we are a family here, right?

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If you hear these words like, oh yeah,

no, we're a family in our company.

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Like, yeah, we all stick to each other.

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This is great.

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Um.

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Then conserving what is keeping the

culture that exists alive is great,

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and feedback becomes violence.

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So sitting in a workshop saying,

Hey, what can we improve next week?

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It's just a positive thing for me, and I

realized I was actively hurting people,

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but they of course don't say, Hey.

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When you give me feedback, this hurts

me because I have a conservative mindset

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and I feel attacked in my values.

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That's not what you will hear.

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You will hear jokes, you

will hear dismissive things.

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You will hear like they will ponder off.

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They if it, if you really pinpoint it

too hard, they start attacking you,

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blaming, and then you know, the whole

shebang of how people interact when they

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are feeling threatened and put in a.

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So realizing this at some point

that I wondered why feedback

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loops don't really work.

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Like the agile feedback loops kind

of worked, but only on the technical

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side, not really fixing the culture,

the modeling sessions exposed things.

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And once we started, hey, great,

now we see our controversies,

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which is a good thing, right?

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This is.

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The usual.

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If you stand in a room, you talk to

people, we're opposing each other.

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I'm right, you're right.

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We're fighting bad.

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But once you stand shoulder to

shoulder against a model like this is

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the whole premise of event storming.

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We're like, let's attack

this model together.

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This is wonderful.

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And we see different perspectives and we

can figure out in which context are you?

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Right?

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And in which context am I right?

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This is wonderful.

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Yeah, this is wonderful if you want

to improve the systemic problem, if

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you want to get out of a systemic rut.

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But for the people that wanna keep

the system as it is alive, because

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it gives them safety, a place of

belonging, or I'm just other reasons

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why they want to keep it that way.

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You attack them and you don't

only attack their way of working.

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You, you go ahead and attack their

identity without even knowing it.

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So involuntarily, I was actually a person

that just went through with an ax through

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a culture and really hurt those people.

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And I don't think they even

realized that they were hurt by me.

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It just felt like, oh, Marco is an idiot.

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Why is he always doing this?

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Like tree hugging people, blah,

blah, blah, talking about feelings.

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We wanna build software here, right?

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So all of these things

don't become transparent.

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You just feel it kind of in the

room and something is off and

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you can't even address it because

it just leads to more violence.

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And by violence I just mean soft

violence, but still violence.

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So.

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That was, that was a really big

learning and a really big problem.

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And then we started, so gathering more

people in the company that I knew are

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open to feedback and then those who

understand the psychosocial dynamics of,

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of, Groups of people trying to figure

out, okay, how can we now make this work?

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And we actually use bounded

context mapping for that.

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so context mapping to say, look, in this

bounded context, we're assuming the people

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in this context are more conservative.

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It's a dangerous assumption because

we're just reducing a group of

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complex individuals to a property.

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But let's work with that assumption

and protect ourselves using a.

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Context boundary, right?

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So that was, it seemed the solution,

building a proper context map that doesn't

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just contain code and team topologies in

the, in the classical sense classical, but

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also in the emotional psychosocial sense

saying, okay, what, what kind of mentality

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and and culture do we feel, feel here?

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And how would that impact our interaction?

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And with that, we could

actually start to manage.

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The problem with management all of a

sudden is it feels like manipulation

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for the people that get managed, right?

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So the moment somebody catches on that,

oh, you put us in a group because we

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are all alike, they're not reflecting

on because we are the conservative

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part and you are the egalitarian part,

and therefore we need a boundary.

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They think, oh, you're putting us in

a corner and micromanaging us, like,

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and this, we never got out of this rut.

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This constantly deepening loop of

people being hurt by cultural mismatch.

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And, and this was, we

reached out for help.

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Like left.

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I mean, you know me, right?

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I went to every conference over the

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every person that was agile system

thinking, sociotechnical, like invite

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them to the company, let them help.

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And yeah, this, this problem, the more

you try to help, the more it's just like

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people just get stonewalled and stuck.

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And so just letting go at some point

was the only thing that was possible

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to say, okay, let's loosen the nudge.

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Let's not.

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Try to fix things.

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Let's work with an unfit system that

just doesn't properly work ever.

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So that was, that was a multi-year

effort that really, really hurt.

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letting, letting loose was the only thing,

letting go, of this problem and then

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inviting lots of people to help, with

the struggle, didn't solve the problem.

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So really just accepting it, working

with an unfit system was the best

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that this situation actually, that

we could do in this situation.

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So that was a multi-year thing,

and it was very painful because.

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I was constantly exhausting myself,

like trying to fix it, right?

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You're like, what else can I try?

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Like I tried event storming, of

course, and then context mapping,

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and we tried domain storytelling

because people were like, oh, these

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sticky notes are too vague, right?

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the feedback you get is not the actual

thing that happens in them, but.

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It's what they think is wrong.

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Like, oh yeah, no, this is too vague.

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Okay, let's go more diagram style.

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Let's use domain storytelling.

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Okay?

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Then you have, at some point, the

developers are in the in the clear.

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They're like, yes, we like this.

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This is like UML.

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We can build this.

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Cool, and you're not talking

about feelings anymore.

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Great.

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But then you have the strategy

part of the company, like the

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other side of the mandate.

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Yeah.

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They're like, but this

is just technology now.

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Right?

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This is a programmers problem.

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Like, no.

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And then we went into the

second phase of our, we can't

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solve this company's problem.

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Getting the, the leadership involved

into the entire solution, being

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like, how can we get out of this Rut?

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Leadership was a, and I'm

assuming now just, but felt

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like a very conservative person.

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That doesn't wanna seem conservative.

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Like they wanted to be like a

dynamic leader in technology.

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Like yes, we are modern, advanced

and whatnot, but you could feel

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in everything they did, like they

were like super conservative.

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they were living their own politics in the

external politics inside of the company.

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And this was like, it was introducing

a kind of toxic culture, in my opinion.

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This is of course, opinionated.

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So that person always

said, yes, you can do that.

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You can do whatever you like here.

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Right?

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We give you all the power, like

introduce new methods, do the

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domain modeling, collaborative.

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That's great.

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Like we wanna be part of it.

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And they sat in every session and

in every session we did, they sat

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in the background and observed.

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And I was like, this is event storming

and you are the person that's leading

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this company into the next millennium.

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Like, great, here are sticky notes.

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Would you like to tell us?

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What do you think is

the most important part?

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Like, no, no, no.

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You go ahead.

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So I'm gonna tell you if something

is missing or wrong and you're like.

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Ah, this was going badly.

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So because I knew it was a multi-year

operation, it's not something that

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needs to be fixed in like a day or two.

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you can let it go for a while, right?

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You can, okay, this person

doesn't feel safe in this meeting.

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So let them show how the method worked.

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Let them show how we find conflict.

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And we, we don't blame people.

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We just figure out conflict is great.

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We learn from it.

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We build a better model.

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So all of the good things, again, going

through the methods, using all the

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things that to, to improve the model.

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And the boss person, they, they played the

game at some point, like they never really

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fully committed to it, but they played it.

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They were like, yes,

let's add sticky notes.

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But you could see the smirk, and

it's a smirk that, as you can

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probably tell, it still gives me an

emotional reaction of I wanna punch

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that face while I'm in the session.

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So you feel like, I've been here for

many years really trying to help your

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company and you're sitting here like me.

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Sure.

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Sticky notes program is ha ha ha.

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They're like, and everybody

could feel that, that the boss

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isn't taking it seriously.

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And then I realized all the methods

in the world, all the prowess, all the

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expertise, like I was already a consultant

helping companies around the world.

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With all of that symbolic power,

you have no chance if your boss

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says, oh yeah, sure, this is cute.

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Let's do this.

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But they don't say that if they, if they

actually say it, you can work with that.

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But if they don't say it,

but you just feel it, it is

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like, oh, that made me so mad.

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And yeah, we, we really

tried open discussion.

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But because he's a conservative, he

felt attacked in his identity, right?

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So then it's like, okay, let's

try soft manipulation, let's

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try nudging the right things.

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That's invite him only for a few

hours to get the information we need

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to make it, make it about money.

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Talk about strategic futures.

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We introduced worldly mapping to say,

look, this is how the market evolves

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and this is how we evolve, right?

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So we went.

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Overboard with everything

you can introduce.

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And then at some point realizing

that whatever we were doing was

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just a very expensive experiment

and our boss was talking to another

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programmer, and this is the kicker.

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After many years of working in

this, talked to another programmer

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to actually build the things that

make the company money right now and

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told him to not interact with us.

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Because he didn't want this to be dragged

into the agile modeling cycle, right?

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This like blah, blah, blah.

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The tree hugging developers

like, yeah, it's cute.

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What they're doing is great, what

they're doing, like company culture

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and whatnot, but please, we need this.

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We need this working well

and fast and build it.

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And the other problem was just like

building something quick that worked

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quickly and it made money quickly.

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And it re, we realized after

we learned about this, it took

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many months to, to get there.

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But after we learned about this, we

realized the new thing they built

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are actually at the core of what the

company's making money with right now.

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Super important.

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And the software was janky of

course, because one person under

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pressure, under speed did it.

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And we were like, what the.

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This needs to be modeled properly.

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We need properly language and context

boundaries and there has to be

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responsibility and of at least a second

pair of eyes on it and pair program.

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Oh God.

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But this was the culture clash.

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So at some point it.

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Actually giving up was the only

thing I could do and say I tried.

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I tried for many years.

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I think I helped a lot of people

in that company to see how

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you can do things differently.

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And we improved the quality locally

of certain parts of the system.

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But as you know, for systems, if you

don't figure out where the bottleneck

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in the entire system is and you

actually repair the system at hand.

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Optimizing a local part that's

not in the key value chain.

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doesn't, doesn't have any.

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So it felt we like really heated

up the universe for a while.

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made a lot of money left and

right and whatnot, but in the

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end, this was a big non success.

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it was a learning for me and some others,

but not the success we wanted to have.

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So yeah, this is one of the,

of the graveyard stories that

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I push under the rug usually.

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But, I wanted to share that.

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So, yeah, that's my story so far.

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Um, I'm still suffering

from it, but I'm smiling.

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So go ahead, ask your questions.

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Andrea Magnorsky: the

first question I have is.

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How did you know that the

problem was cultural alignment?

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Because you started off the story saying

this is a story about cultural alignment.

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That means that you spent quite

a few cycles thinking about it.

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Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yes.

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Um, so this was not my

initial analysis, right?

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I didn't start at saying, Ooh, there

seems to be cultural misalignment

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here, because first of all.

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How dare I, right?

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Who, who would I be to

understand this quickly?

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And if you understand this quickly,

then well check your understanding

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because this is probably biased.

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so being aware of all of that,

initially I thought this, there's

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a technological problem, so let's

fix it with better architecture.

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Then I thought it's a feedback

loop problem, so let's fix

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it with feedback loops.

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Then I figured, no, we're not talking

properly to each other because the

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feedback loops are there, but there's

still bullshit coming out of it, and

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it's always misaligned content wise.

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So let's fix that.

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Collaborative modeling and so on.

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And then realizing we're doing

everything right by the book, as

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I understand domain driven design.

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we even got the expert, like I

talked to Alberto and Eric and like

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name drop, name drop, name drop.

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We talk to like all the book authors

say, Hey, this is what we tried.

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What could we do better?

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And then it's like after you try every

method, realizing it's still failing.

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Like this can't be a problem

of sticky notes or methods.

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And at some point, woman ZA colleague

in my office introduced me to,

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spiral dynamics, the psychosocial

evolution of human, behavior.

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And I usually don't drop this name.

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You have to be very careful because

there is an esoterical movement with

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the same name and very similar content.

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So Googling this stuff is kind of like

gets you into icky spaces, but, um, it

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is a psychosocial theory of how people

evolve as individuals and also as groups.

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And, yeah, it's, I don't wanna go

into a theory talking now, but the,

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just the basic idea of like, there are

different memes you, you, gather during

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a lifetime based on the complexity of

the problematic situations you're in.

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So you try to survive, right?

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And then there's family grouping,

and then there's like power

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struggles in your youth and whatnot.

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Then you get into a conservative mindset.

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Then there's like the, the, aspirational

driven mindset, like scientific

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thinking and company struggles.

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Then there's green mindset

and so on and so forth.

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There's a whole bunch of theory behind.

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Why and how this works in psychology, but

these patterns, they mapped really well

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on what I was observing in the company.

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So I was like, holy shit, this is like,

this is a blueprint and fully aware

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of yes, we are all humans, we're all

biased, and whenever the shoe fits,

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it's probably not your shoe, but let's,

let's still look at it from all angles.

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But the more we try to pro it and say,

okay, this has to be wrong, right?

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Good scientific thinking, like

how, what's the null hypothesis?

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How can we prove this to be false?

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Every time we try, it's like,

oh, this fits, this fits so well.

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And then realizing no matter what method

we're using, when we talk to these people,

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they react exactly as you would expect.

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Someone with this mindset, with

the ex, with the conservative

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mindset to react to these things.

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And then realizing, okay, so I never

understood why asking for feedback,

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making things very transparent.

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I hear back echo well, um, making

things very transparent leads

400

to, to people feeling attacked.

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Or getting like humorous or

defensive or whatever, like why?

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And this is what you expect

from a very conservative person.

403

If you let them figure out

what can you do better?

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Because you deck their identity.

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It's like, okay, this fits too well.

406

And then we use the methods from that,

that that basically emerged from Spiral

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dynamics to say, how can we manage this?

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And that management actually

led to some ease in the system.

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It made things work better because you

take people from where they are and

410

don't try to bring them to where you are.

411

But only figure out where could

they go from where they are.

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Right.

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Help them do the next step, even

though it's not what you want, but

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it's the only thing they can do.

415

And that changed things for the better.

416

So this was our like long-term

experimental, first of all, biased

417

understanding, but then figuring out

what actually works and doesn't work.

418

And that's when the realization came.

419

Like, we have a cultural problem here.

420

there are different mindsets,

different emotional backgrounds.

421

Different wants and needs and people

are not always able and aware at

422

the same level to communicate about

their feelings and their inner world.

423

Not everybody is self-reflected and does

feedback loops on themselves and so on.

424

Like this is rare.

425

It's not the norm.

426

And sometimes we, in the agile space

and modeling space, forget that not

427

everybody stands at home with sticky notes

and figures out their own life, right?

428

Many people just live their life

and are happy the way it is, and

429

they don't want a need to change.

430

Kenny Schwegler: And this has to do of

course with what's happening at home

431

how much load do they have there's

many reasons your event storming

432

Reminds me a bit of Paul Rainer's story

about uh popping open some code and

433

go refactoring it in public right So

434

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Oh my God.

435

Kenny Schwegler: work

436

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yeah.

437

Let me guess.

438

Somebody got hurt because

they changed their code.

439

And made it better, and that person's

like, I worked hard on this code.

440

You're like, yeah, yeah,

441

Kenny Schwegler: And it's the

same actually what people might

442

underestimate with event storming

right Event storming is not just

443

a method I guess what you do you

444

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): yeah,

445

Kenny Schwegler: people in a

room and you might accidentally

446

unintentionally attack their models

447

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): yeah.

448

Kenny Schwegler: and if you're not

careful with that their thoughts or

449

and when people don't feel safe I

guess it's very hard for them to change

450

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yeah.

451

Kenny Schwegler: so

452

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him):

I want to add to that.

453

Kenny Schwegler: Yeah Yeah sure And

and my question so add something and

454

my question would be is there something

you would've done different looking back

455

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yes.

456

So first I want to interject and say it's

not just if they feel safe, they need to

457

feel safe and intrinsically motivated.

458

Kenny Schwegler: Yeah

459

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): That

is one very important step.

460

No matter the level of safety.

461

If you don't have a need to

change, you will not change.

462

So the thing that I would've done

differently, looking back, the very,

463

the very obvious thing is leave way

earlier because I realized I was a

464

very dangerous force in that group.

465

Like I was trying to invoke

change that wasn't demanded.

466

This is something I do differently

with all my customers ever since.

467

It's like I get a mandate, like not just

from the company, like if a boss pays

468

me and there's a one, one prodigy in the

company saying, Hey, one sponsor saying we

469

want you and this is what we're gonna do.

470

I wanna talk to the people I work with

before we start the workshop, right?

471

Because otherwise you're, you're,

you're helping people against

472

their will and that always fails.

473

That is just a massive

struggle I don't wanna do.

474

So if you don't want the help or

the change, I don't wanna help you.

475

Not in a.

476

In a mean way, but I don't

wanna hurt you with this.

477

Right.

478

So that's the one thing

I would've changed.

479

try to get a mandate and

realizing there is none.

480

and then going, just leaving the company,

because they were, they were doing the

481

things they were doing, the system was

optimizing itself to be kept alive.

482

Um, the, and that's the

defeatist way of thinking, right?

483

I mean, it's a helpful way, but it's also

saying, yeah, I struggled a long time.

484

I should have quit earlier.

485

Let's put that aside.

486

That is a thing I should have done,

but if I wouldn't have quit, the thing

487

I would do differently in that company

is to not try to enforce, my culture.

488

The culture of agile feedback loops

and collaborative modeling and

489

constant visualization and focus on

clean language and all that stuff,

490

and psychological safety to make that

the leading culture of the company.

491

Accept the culture that is right if

people are conservative or power driven

492

or these are not just ative stereotypes,

but it can be a very complex roster

493

of, of various emotions and needs.

494

That's what is, respect what is there and

figure out what help do they really need?

495

What, what's the next bottleneck?

496

How can you help this system grow into

its better potential, not into the

497

vision that somebody sees as a target.

498

Like you can have a vision where the

whole company could be in five years.

499

We're all like super emotionally

sharing and have fast feedback

500

loops, and we release twice a day.

501

Great.

502

But that's not real, right?

503

That's a fantasy.

504

If you have a company that has

half year cycles and the company

505

is like teams with clear boundaries

and clear bosses and whatnot, this

506

transformation is a 100% shift of culture.

507

There is no way you get there.

508

You can only figure out what's

the next helpful step and

509

then also be agile about that.

510

So the agility, the, the responding to

change and going in iterations on the

511

cultural change is something I didn't do

and that is something I would do very,

512

very differently nowadays and that can

very well mean living with a part of

513

the culture that I don't like and where

I think this is hurtful for the system.

514

In the way I would like the system

to be, but it's actually the best

515

thing the system has right now.

516

And the best thing it,

it works for the system.

517

So the result I produce don't

have to be in a way that I like.

518

Right?

519

My aesthetic, realization

of, I like this shape.

520

This is beautiful.

521

Let's go.

522

There is not what, what

needs to be realized.

523

So this is a hard thing as a facilitator

or as a consultant, I come with my own

524

biases of how things should be, right?

525

What would be a good or right solution.

526

And I have my experiences from.

527

200 plus companies and like, yeah,

I feel entitled to know things,

528

but there are 200 other people in

that company that also know things

529

and they want different things, so

530

Kenny Schwegler: Yeah I think what you're

saying you say work with what there is

531

and also right Think about yourself If I

ask someone ah you should go to therapy

532

and you are like no well then it's

533

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): yeah.

534

Kenny Schwegler: work And

535

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yeah,

536

Kenny Schwegler: even though

everyone can use therapy

537

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): yeah.

538

Of course.

539

Kenny Schwegler: not in the

situation where I think I did it

540

in the past but right now no So it

won't work I need to be open for it

541

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yep.

542

Kenny Schwegler: I think Andrew you have a

543

Andrew Harmel-Law: I was

just gonna ask Mark, do.

544

You like, 'cause you mentioned

like paying attention to kind of

545

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yep.

546

Andrew Harmel-Law: So you know

when, when you could push or when

547

you couldn't push or when you need

to just kind of live with things.

548

Are there any heuristics or that you've

learned over the time where you're like,

549

you could obviously find these things by

pushing too hard and then you get pushed

550

back and then it hurts and it's painful.

551

But if you kind of developed any

heuristics for kind of spotting this stuff

552

without having to go through the pain

553

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yeah,

so I think like 10 years ago or so,

554

I started a list of heuristics of

modeling, heuristics and cultural change,

555

heuristics and, and architecture, like

for all the different areas in my life.

556

I started to build heuristic lists,

and then I realized with my, like a

557

DH, D brain, like I, I realized I built

lists, but I never looked at the list.

558

So I stopped actually collecting.

559

It's the, the thing I do the most is gut

feeling, and that's a very bad heuristic.

560

I, I totally realize that, but it's

informed gut feeling, so I feel

561

entitled to it being a better solution.

562

no, but, but there are some, there are

some mechanics that, that, I often go to.

563

Like I try to keep my heuristic

list to a very simple, manageable

564

thing that I actually operate with.

565

so that's one heuristic.

566

Keep your heuristic list short and

don't try to have like 500 options.

567

like you're not an LLM with a bunch

of skills that you can execute

568

whenever the prompt fits right.

569

so what I do is, I.

570

Often open with an event storming, right?

571

This is my starting here, like take the

modeling method I'm most familiar with

572

that has the, the highest potential

for people to interact in various ways.

573

Unconstrained.

574

And keep a strong eye on the

people that do not interact.

575

So there are introverts that don't

wanna open up in front of a group

576

that much, or that takes more energy.

577

There's political, struggles and so on.

578

So observing human behavior,

observing body language, observing

579

the interaction, and very important

heuristic, observe the non-interaction.

580

As a facilitator, I try to keep an

eye on who's not interacting, even

581

though they should be from a point

of, of, domain or or power level.

582

And then.

583

Interacting in, in shorter cycles,

saying like, Hey, we make the

584

big session to understand things.

585

So don't try to fix everything in the

same modeling session is also a heuristic.

586

if you see a problem, you don't

have to address it immediately.

587

Just write it down and then

talk to the people, right?

588

If you have a good, if you have a

good standing with them, if you know

589

Andrew, you and I, if I have a problem

with you, I think, oh, that's weird.

590

I know I can just come to you

like, Hey, can we talk a second?

591

If there's somebody in a suit saying, no,

no, no, this is how we should do things.

592

Like, I'm like, yeah.

593

I'm not just gonna go to their office and

say, look, I observed a problem with you.

594

Like that's.

595

No, but then you have like a beer

in the afternoon or go to a football

596

match or just chill a lunch break

and get into the conversation.

597

So take your time to really

understand, where the struggle comes

598

from, and then for the next session,

you can then prepare and adjust.

599

Um.

600

So those are a bunch of the heuristics.

601

Um, small control experiments is something

I love to do, and that kind of fits with

602

Andrea's bite-sized architecture and also

these bite-sized sessions here, right?

603

Small control experiments

is what I really love to do.

604

So because I, I'm fully aware, I'm

biased, like I can be the smartest person

605

in the room and I still get it wrong.

606

Most of the time you're biased and you

will never lose your biases, not fully.

607

So given that, just assume

you don't know shit.

608

So here's an experiment.

609

What if I try this?

610

Let's observe what the result is.

611

Working with n Hypothesis,

figuring out what would be the

612

how, how can we break this, right?

613

And just, just figure out what

happens when you try something.

614

Um, and then in that

case, just be creative.

615

Like this is, this is where

the DDD community helps.

616

there is ddd heuristics.com.

617

That's something I sometimes go through

to just randomly pick something.

618

Say, let's try that.

619

And you just try and

figure out what happens.

620

Andrew Harmel-Law: Yeah, I think

that you mentioned it a few

621

times, but time to think as well.

622

Right.

623

So I think neurodiversity, whether,

you know, whether or not we're

624

neurodiverse or not, I think.

625

People, like of us tend to just think

and and process stuff really fast

626

and a lot of other people just don't.

627

Right.

628

Especially if they don't

move between companies.

629

'cause I think

630

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yeah.

631

Andrew Harmel-Law: I realized recently

the fact I'm a consultant is possibly

632

'cause I get bored quite a lot and

then I just, I get moved from company

633

to company whether I like it or not.

634

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yeah.

635

Andrew Harmel-Law: somewhere for a long

time 'cause they don't wanna move and

636

they like to understand stuff and it,

they want to think about it longer.

637

So like you said about kind of

time to think, I think is a.

638

Can be a big deal.

639

Right?

640

Just if you rush people into stuff,

even if they like the sound of it, they

641

might be like, I just don't wanna be,

I don't wanna go into this too fast.

642

So yeah,

643

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): That

was my biggest personal learning.

644

So, sorry, Kenny, uh, just finish.

645

Um, this was my biggest personal learning.

646

it's not something I want to

give other people, but for

647

me, this was super helpful.

648

Shut the fuck up, is what I

learned for me, because I'm

649

someone I, I think, while I talk.

650

So if I sit alone in my office and you

want deep thinking for me, forget it.

651

Like, I can do this for half an hour

max, and then I'm just, I'm gone.

652

I need someone to talk to.

653

And while we're talking, like the

whole story I'm telling today,

654

I didn't prepare any of this.

655

Like this is not like I don't have

my bullet points in front of me.

656

I think when I talk on this works

wonderfully so I can come up with

657

great new ideas in a group of people.

658

The more people, the more

energy and that's great.

659

And then I realized not

everybody is that way.

660

Some people just need silence

and give me time to think.

661

So I was like, Hey, what do you think?

662

And they're like, I, I, I, I don't know.

663

And then while they were not

saying anything, I'm like,

664

okay, jumping right in again.

665

So for me, this was the, this is years

ago already, but this was the biggest

666

learning to say, give people space.

667

And I just realized, Kenny, I

just shut you up to not give you

668

space, but, um, give people space.

669

And just, even though everything in

me is screaming, like, yeah, talk.

670

You have an idea, go further.

671

It's like, no, just

wait and open the space.

672

Hold the space for other people

to find the time and, and, power

673

to think that's super important.

674

Kenny Schwegler: So especially you

know big picture events moments are

675

great but they're a full day So having

shorter experience is what you're saying

676

Marco is really nice and I don't tend

to my istic now is I don't tend to

677

make decisions in meetings I say okay

Let's write it down in an a DR then

678

I'm gonna share it with you and you

679

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yeah.

680

Kenny Schwegler: think about it You can

get your feedback and maybe in a couple of

681

days I put you all together if there's no

682

icky stuff happening while we're

asynchronously talking So I give

683

people space and time So I guess

that's I'm similar as you Marco

684

luckily I have a brilliant wife who

told me to shut up once in a while so

685

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Is there

a correlation between consultants

686

that are community members and A DHD

or so we should gather data there.

687

Andrew Harmel-Law: It could be.

688

Kenny Schwegler: I tend to talk a

lot It's an emotional thing anyway

689

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yeah.

690

Kenny Schwegler: for this session

691

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Yeah.

692

Kenny Schwegler: I think uh that's

it Thank you Marco Or do you Andre or

693

Andrew have one last daring question you

694

Andrew Harmel-Law: I am good.

695

I'm just thinking about a load of

stuff now that all the stuff that

696

Marcus didn't mention to us, so.

697

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him):

Thank you so much.

698

Andrea Magnorsky: I think this was great.

699

Thank you very much, Marco.

700

Marco Heimeshoff (he/him): Thanks me.

701

Kenny Schwegler: Thank you very much

And I don't generally like to say

702

this but please like us subscribe so

it spread the word of these stories I

703

hope they're very helpful Come to our

Discord channel Marco's there Andrea's

704

there Andrew's there I'm there and we

can talk more about these subjects and

705

maybe you'll be in our next stories

of facilitating design architecting

706

whatever the show is called nowadays

thanks and see you next time Bye-bye