Map the whole journey
Consider what happens before a user opens the interface and after they finish a task. Information may arrive from another team, move through a background process, and eventually reach a customer or colleague.
Make boundaries explicit
Define which system owns each record and which team owns each handoff. Use clear contracts for integrations. Ambiguous ownership becomes harder to resolve as more features and systems are added.
Leave room to evolve
Build around the core journey and document the important decisions. Use feedback and operational evidence to guide subsequent work. A useful foundation makes the next decision easier to understand.
Design for integration
Prefer explicit APIs over screen scraping, version contracts, and include fallback behavior when a dependent service is slow or unavailable.
Keep the data consistent
Establish sources of truth, handle eventual consistency intentionally, and make reconciliation paths obvious when records diverge.