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When two engineers argue about which service should own a customer record, they often are not disagreeing about the design at all. They are arguing about two different systems. The practical fix described in Asael Shinder’s DEV Community article “Draw the Picture Before You Argue About It” is to stop trading verbal descriptions and sketch the system together, starting with how it works today and then the proposal. A blank whiteboard or a sheet of paper is enough.
The scenario the article uses
Shinder’s article opens with an illustrative scenario, not a reported case study. Engineers debate whether the customer service should be owned by the billing service or sit beside it as a peer that both billing and other callers use. One engineer pictures the customer service behind billing, so billing calls it and everything routes through billing. The other pictures it beside billing, a standalone component that several services call directly. Each person can describe their version accurately, and each rebuttal is aimed at a system the other person is not seeing. The disagreement is partly about the imagined system, and only partly about the design choice.
Why verbal descriptions stall
Spoken or written descriptions are decoded into private mental pictures. Two people can use the same component names, nod along, and still hold different call directions, different data flows, or different assumptions about what sits between them. The mismatch often stays hidden until someone proposes a change that only fits one of the pictures. Typical signs include:
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- Objections keep referring to components that have not been named the same way.
- The discussion circles back to the same point after each new detail is added.
- “That is not what I meant” appears only after a proposal has already been written.
A diagram forces each assumption into a visible form. Once a box is drawn in the wrong place, the other person can see it immediately and correct it without arguing about who explained things badly.
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The method, step by step
The article’s approach is simple enough to run in the next design meeting. It needs no special drawing skill and no paid tool.
- Put a surface where both people can see it. Use a blank whiteboard or a sheet of paper placed where everyone in the discussion can view it. A formal diagramming tool is not a prerequisite.
- Sketch the current state first, then the proposal. Starting with what exists anchors the discussion to shared reality. Keep the drawing limited to what the decision requires. A diagram of every internal detail is more likely to create new confusion than to resolve the old one.
- Draw boxes for system parts and arrows for calls or flows. Label each arrow with the information moving along it, such as “customer ID” or “plan status”. Unlabelled arrows are the most common source of two people reading the same line in different ways.
- Hand over the pen. Invite the other person to take the marker and correct the picture. Their corrections expose the assumption that differs between you, which usually makes the actual design question easier to discuss.
- Save the shared sketch with the meeting notes. Photograph or screenshot the final drawing and attach it to the notes, so participants refer back to the same artifact rather than to their recollections of the conversation.
In the customer-record scenario, the first sketch might show a Billing box with an arrow to a Customer Service box labelled “customer ID, plan status.” The second engineer then redraws the same two boxes side by side, with both pointing to Customer Service. The arrows make it obvious which picture each person was arguing from before any design trade-off is discussed.
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Whiteboard or paper: how the two options compare
The article names no competing diagramming products or formal methods. Its meaningful choice is between a shared whiteboard and a paper sketch, and it treats paper as an equally valid substitute. The comparison below uses axes inferred from the article’s workflow. It is not a formal evaluation, and the article does not measure either option.
| Criterion | Shared whiteboard | Paper sketch |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility to the group | Visible to everyone in the room if the board is large enough to read from the seats | Visible to those close enough to see the sheet; not stated for larger groups |
| Ease of correction | Erasable, so corrections replace earlier boxes and arrows cleanly | Corrections usually mean drawing over or starting a new sheet |
| Saving with meeting notes | Photograph or screenshot the board before it is erased | Photograph or scan the sheet and attach it to the notes |
| Prerequisites | A blank board and dry-erase markers | Any blank paper and a pen or pencil |
For most small design discussions, the choice comes down to what is already in the room. A paper sketch is a reasonable substitute when no board is available.
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What the sketch settles, and what it does not
Agreement on a diagram is agreement on what system is being discussed. It is not agreement on the decision. Once the picture is shared, the disagreement can move to the remaining question: which design best serves the requirements, and what it costs. That shift is where argument writing guidance becomes useful.
J. H. Gardiner’s The Making of Arguments offers historical guidance on writing argument rather than on engineering meetings. Its relevant principles are to research both sides, reduce the subject to a single arguable proposition, identify the main issues, agree on relevant facts where possible, and treat opposing points fairly. Gardiner also states that the aim of argument is agreement. These principles were not tested on technical design reviews, but they fit well with a sketch-first meeting: the drawing establishes the facts, and the argument then addresses one proposition and its trade-offs.
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Limits of the approach
Shinder’s article presents this as practical advice. It does not report a controlled study, a success rate, or a measured outcome, so it should not be read as a guarantee that drawing ends disagreement. Its value is narrower and more reliable: a rough diagram exposes mismatched assumptions faster than further verbal description, and it gives the group a single revisable artifact to return to.
Two practical risks follow. A sketch that tries to show everything becomes unreadable, so keep it tied to the decision at hand. A sketch that is never saved gets re-argued from memory in the next meeting, which defeats its purpose. The article’s closing advice captures the core idea: “So when a technical conversation starts going in circles, stop talking and draw.”
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Sources: Asael Shinder, “Draw the Picture Before You Argue About It,” DEV Community (posted September 30; the year is not shown in the text available for this summary). J. H. Gardiner, The Making of Arguments.
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