In DDD it really important that everyone business people and developers share a model. A model is shared understanding of the system. It helps in forming a common language between all the stakeholders. This makes sure that the code design doesn't drift from the model and it reflects the domain.
The model has to be tightly associated with the domain it comes from. Designing without a model can lead to software which is not true to the domain it serves, and may not have the expected behavior.
One of the first things we are taught about modeling is to read the business specifications and look for nouns and verbs. The nouns are converted to classes, while the verbs become methods. This is a simplification, and will lead to a shallow model. All models are lacking depth in the beginning, but we should refactor the model toward deeper and deeper insight.