Whiteboards are not so good when you want to rearranging a diagram though. But... it occurred to me that if the whiteboard is magnetic then fridge-magnet-style UML-shapes might help. So I found a company that sells magnetic sheet and paid a bit extra to have it coated with a dry-wipe surface. The first sample arrived today and I've made my first prototypes. I cut out two sizes of rectangles and edged them with a permanent marker. Here's one of the larger ones (the background is a tablecloth not wallpaper!)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfUOGMGBD53fSRy_bBGmvBw2IvXuqiS1ONz4d4hAVyI5zgO_U2iR7874XHMmoCGa8oKLqU1L-elyV2zZqvskphvkGMXc6dJkE4cGj7PhlEggWCuLvfh_PHbph_BIiFQPdr9TtL/s200/UML_FridgeMagnet.jpg)
Now simply stick them on the whiteboard - they stick to each other of course:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv4FdwMB82ca7H-weuhUhKsYn6R3Ko-FG2dbgzCAD14R_ZW6RhZwUQZW37MHIKrrOVJHc9qZsBP9A0bG3TbebQrxZmEkiuIRLtkl010IqB6o9KkFyh6GiAtPSaxlGQv5OpUaEP/s200/Ready.jpg)
Here's the big rectangles vertically in 3-section class format:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtU8g6YJ8Jrvib6e2pCuixOK-IXEGaioiwFXFOy2_9wxpx1UNcnN6nls-XVZ45y9fJ7cUGsvdef5YY2Q27h1uaj9LM3ZRdZdaL5R8ijmvhdyk-35H_MOQaiItqLhXy7MNZ4TXB/s200/BigClassDetail.jpg)
And horizontally for packages (just draw on the top-left tab):
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXaLNqtmT1bzrcoS6emYVMhYT5h5QV9jikwrFE476Aoph_1KLgar42NCvs9i3Ae8IBKTWKfNWRUtsXR3eC8QHVbb3fq-mTeiU-MI2Gj7CqxqMOfw7a7bITTGyC93jP_LUifZ21/s200/Package.jpg)
Here's a 1-section only class diagram overview made from the smaller rectangles:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBdJiciPEZrJ6TKrj3wfUcr_LJfofE5g1EmIYz976Xopi1vayrP6ai7WsM5lsrgsrAzpPUU1sazh-FITSoEXhZOmVkG4XiZvUoV8eXUVFTloTZZJK0loHvPEwR7Gyq8foyZMVL/s200/SmallClass.jpg)
And just for Pete Goodliffe here's a Booch cloud:
I'm also going to cut out some ellipses for use-cases/scenarios and some rounded rectangles (roundtangles) for activities/states.