Since 2001 I have been working with class, component, distribution, activity and sequence diagrams that were part of the IBM Global Services Method. In the last few years I have been creating more and more rough UML diagrams myself in order to promote a uniform understanding with the department and within the IT team.

The Business Process Model & Notation method offers a notation or representation that is very easy to understand for business representatives and at the same time offers very helpful semantics for system developers. With the Camunda Modeler tool, simple diagrams can be created quickly and easily.

The book of the same name by Eric Evans is a must-read for anyone involved in systems development. It addresses the basic problem in software projects. Namely, that the design (architecture) of systems very often cannot cope efficiently with evolving requirements. In essence, the approach to solve this problem is three-fold. First, a common ubiquitous language (definition of terms) is to be found for the respective business domains, secondly modelling of the business domain TOGETHER with their representatives and thirdly, that the resulting business logic must be recognizable in the program code.

BDD

My work with Behavior Driven Development consists specifically in describing business rules in user stories, based on the principles of Domain Driven Design.

With the Camunda Modeller you can create BPMN diagrams in next to no time. Very easy and intuitive to use.

At the time I started working with Gliffy in 2010, was is a huge relief for me compared to Powerpoint. This tool is also available as a Confluence plug-in.

Another tool for making charts, but not as easy to use as the other programs I've worked with. Also available as a Confluence plug-in.

An excellent tool for quickly creating mask designs that I really enjoy working with. Also available as a Confluence plug-in.

The defacto standard in the agile world for creating user stories and epics, as well as processing according to agile methods.

Excellent tool to describe more detailed concepts using plugins (e.g. Jira, Balsamiq) to create diagrams and mask designs. In particular, the link with Jira User Stories makes it a means for efficient project implementation.

Every now and then there are situations when I use Visio to create process diagrams. Although this works well, it has remained an exception in recent years.