Thinkers
Standing on their shoulders
The architects, engineers, and researchers whose ideas these models come from. Each one links to the models attributed to them, so you can trace an idea back to its source.
Martin Fowler
11 modelsChief Scientist, Thoughtworks
Bounded Context · Technical Debt as Interest · Strangler Fig · Inverse Conway Maneuver · Build, Buy, or Partner · Architecture Is About the Important Stuff · Monolith First · Microservice Premium · Sacrificial Architecture · Design Stamina Hypothesis · Technical Debt Quadrant
Gregor Hohpe
7 modelsAuthor and enterprise strategist
Platforms and Network Effects · Optionality · Exit Strategy (Lock-in as a Design Input) · The Architect Elevator · Architects See More Dimensions · Starbucks Does Not Use Two-Phase Commit · Economies of Speed
Michael Nygard
4 modelsAuthor and systems architect
Blast Radius · Graceful Degradation · Architecture Decision Records · Circuit Breaker
Neal Ford
4 modelsDirector and software architect, Thoughtworks
Everything Is a Trade-off · Fitness Functions · Evals as Fitness Functions · Why Is More Important Than How
Eric Evans
3 modelsFounder of Domain Language
Bounded Context · Ubiquitous Language · Anti-Corruption Layer
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
3 modelsAuthors of Team Topologies
Inverse Conway Maneuver · Cognitive Load · Platforms and Network Effects
Mark Richards
2 modelsSoftware architect and educator
Everything Is a Trade-off · Why Is More Important Than How
Fred Brooks
2 modelsIBM System/360 lead; UNC professor
Brooks's Law · Conceptual Integrity
Melvin Conway
2 modelsComputer scientist
Conway's Law · Inverse Conway Maneuver
Ward Cunningham
2 modelsInventor of the wiki
Technical Debt as Interest · Technical Debt Quadrant
David Parnas
2 modelsPioneer of software engineering
Coupling and Cohesion · Information Hiding
Werner Vogels
2 modelsCTO, Amazon
Eventual Consistency · Everything Fails, All the Time
Andrej Karpathy
2 modelsFounding member of OpenAI; former Director of AI at Tesla
Software 2.0 · The Autonomy Slider
Elon Musk
2 modelsFounder of SpaceX and xAI; CEO of Tesla
First Principles Thinking · The Algorithm: Question, Delete, Simplify, Accelerate, Automate
Kent Beck
1 modelCreator of Extreme Programming
Make the Change Easy, Then Make the Easy Change
Simon Wardley
1 modelStrategist and researcher
Wardley Mapping
Edsger Dijkstra
1 modelComputer scientist, Turing Award 1972
Separation of Concerns
Larry Constantine
1 modelCo-author of Structured Design
Coupling and Cohesion
L. Peter Deutsch
1 modelSun Microsystems; creator of Ghostscript
Fallacies of Distributed Computing
Eric Brewer
1 modelProfessor emeritus, UC Berkeley; Google
CAP and PACELC
Hyrum Wright
1 modelSoftware engineer, Google
Hyrum's Law
Joel Spolsky
1 modelCo-founder of Stack Overflow
Law of Leaky Abstractions
Dan McKinley
1 modelEngineer, formerly at Etsy
Innovation Tokens
Don Reinertsen
1 modelProduct development economist
Cost of Delay
Eliyahu Goldratt
1 modelPhysicist and management thinker
Theory of Constraints
Meir Lehman
1 modelSoftware engineering researcher
Lehman's Laws of Software Evolution
Rich Sutton
1 modelReinforcement learning pioneer, University of Alberta
The Bitter Lesson
Jared Kaplan
1 modelPhysicist; co-founder of Anthropic
Scaling Laws
Dario Amodei
1 modelCo-founder and CEO of Anthropic; formerly VP of Research at OpenAI
Scaling Laws
Ethan Mollick
1 modelProfessor at the Wharton School
The Jagged Frontier
Simon Willison
1 modelCo-creator of Django; creator of Datasette
The Lethal Trifecta
Stewart Brand
1 modelWriter and founder of the Whole Earth Catalog
Pace Layering
Simon Brown
1 modelIndependent consultant; creator of the C4 model
C4 Model (Zoom Levels for Audiences)
Barbara Minto
1 modelFormer McKinsey consultant; writing teacher
The Pyramid Principle
Chris Argyris
1 modelOrganisational psychologist, Harvard
Ladder of Inference
Allan Cohen & David Bradford
1 modelBabson College; Stanford Graduate School of Business
Influence Without Authority
Chip & Dan Heath
1 modelAuthors; Stanford Graduate School of Business and Duke CASE
Curse of Knowledge
Jeanne Ross, Peter Weill & David Robertson
1 modelMIT Center for Information Systems Research; IMD
Operating Model (Standardisation and Integration)
Dave Snowden
1 modelFounder of The Cynefin Company
Cynefin
Zhamak Dehghani
1 modelCreator of data mesh; formerly at Thoughtworks
Data as a Product (Data Mesh)
Michael Hammer
1 modelMIT professor; pioneer of business process reengineering
Automate or Obliterate
Paul A. David
1 modelEconomic historian, Stanford University
The Dynamo Lesson (Productivity Paradox)
Lisanne Bainbridge
1 modelCognitive psychologist, University College London
Ironies of Automation
Ronald Coase
1 modelEconomist; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1991
The Nature of the Firm (Transaction Costs)
Roy Amara
1 modelFuturist; president of the Institute for the Future
Amara's Law
Hans Moravec
1 modelRoboticist, Carnegie Mellon University
Moravec's Paradox
Clayton Christensen
1 modelHarvard Business School professor
Jobs to Be Done
Noriaki Kano
1 modelQuality management researcher, Tokyo University of Science
Kano Model
Eric Ries
1 modelEntrepreneur; author of The Lean Startup
Build–Measure–Learn
Teresa Torres
1 modelProduct discovery coach
Opportunity Solution Tree
Josh Seiden
1 modelDesigner and product consultant
Outcomes Over Output
Marty Cagan
1 modelFounder of the Silicon Valley Product Group
The Four Big Risks
John Boyd
1 modelUS Air Force colonel and military strategist
OODA Loop
Herbert Simon
1 modelPolymath; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1978; Turing Award, 1975
Satisficing
Annie Duke
1 modelFormer professional poker player; decision strategist
Decisions vs Outcomes (Resulting)
Paul Rogers & Marcia Blenko
1 modelBain & Company
Decision Rights (Who Has the D?)