Together with my teammates, I'm trying to self-learn XP and apply its principles. We're successfully working in TDD and happily refactoring our code and design. However we're having problems with the overall view of the design of the project.

Lately we were wondering what would be the "good" practices for an effective continuous design of the code. We're not strictly seeking the right model, like CRC cards, communication diagrams, etc., instead we're looking for a technique to constantly collaborate on the high level view of the system (not too high though).

I'll try to explain myself better: I'm actually interested in the way CRC cards are used to brainstorm a model and I would mix them with some very rough UML diagrams (that we already use). However, what we're looking for are some principles for deciding when, how and how much to model during our iterations.

Have you any suggestion on this matter? For example, when your teammates and you know you need a design session and how your meetings work?