Blueprints

In this chapter, we’ll take a step forward by building on the elements that we’ve covered and the work that we’ve done already to develop the plans that we will execute. This will ultimately result in the creation of a blueprint—that is, the design and the artifacts you will develop to encapsulate, describe, and codify the design. Note that the word “blueprint” isn’t standard terminology—it’s what we’re using here to describe a set of related documents that all help achieve a central goal. This is typically analogous to the role and purpose of what a traditional blueprint does in a physical construction context.

So, what’s in this blueprint? Several things. At the highest levels of abstraction, we’re trying to accomplish two things simultaneously. The first, and arguably most important, is that we want to capture elements of the desired future state that we will be trying to achieve by...