Kurt Buhler has an interesting approach:
Developing a good semantic model or report takes a lot of time and effort. One way to reduce this cost is by re-using parts of an existing solution for a new model or project. This modular approach is particularly valuable when a developer faces common or recurring challenges and processes. Despite this, many developers commonly repeat efforts when they start new projects, models, and reports. For example, developers will often manually recreate measures, date tables, and patterns in a new model, or spend precious hours formatting visuals in a new report, while they have already created the same or similar things in the past. One reason for this is that it is difficult to identify candidate elements to re-use, or how you can re-use them in a convenient and scalable manner.
In this article, we want to introduce a conceptual framework from UI/UX called the atomic design methodology from Brad Frost. This framework can help developers to approach Power BI models and reports in a modular way to improve productivity and consistency of a developer’s work. The purpose of this article is to introduce the concept as well as some approaches that exist to re-use parts of your model and report. In future articles and videos, we will elaborate on these and other methods in additional detail.
I like the idea a lot, but Kurt does describe some of the challenges you’ll likely need to work through to adopt it.