Working for decades in this industry, I have not find a better way of managing a huge amount of complexity than UML. If you don't want to use, you are throwing

Working for decades in this industry, I have not find a better way of managing a huge amount of complexity than UML. If you don't want to use, you are throwing away a "super power". Communication is, perhaps, the hardest part in software engineering field, and UML removes a lot of the ambiguity by using icons that represents a lot, replacing pages and pages of documentation. Furthermore, with a serious UML tool you can have traceability between everything, tying the problem to the final solution. I don't care anymore if people/companies don't use it. I use it for myself. It's the tool to leverage my brain and make my life easier when controlling and managing all the information complexity I work with. TIP: you don't draw everything, you draw only what is important, KISS (keep it simple) and chose the level of details you need. You can always add more later. Everything MUST have traceability, if not, it will be useless in some time. Ignore the tools that does not have this feature.