Incompany Event Storming

You have smart experts in your organization. Let’s leverage this power!

The main purposes of Event Storming are to bootstrap startups, model processes, explore software requirements, define software component boundaries, and map complex collaborative system behavior.

This workshop is also perfect as an online event.

I’ve had the training myself from the inventor Alberto Brandolini during DDD Europe. After this workshop I’ve executed the format several times online and on location. It is a gamechanger in my opinion because of the shared understanding created in the group in a playful way.

The goal and scope will be entirely tailor-made to your organization.

Purpose 1: Explore value, problems and opportunities in current situation

1. Chaotic exploration
   • Adding events to the modelling space using personal color.
   • Your role doesn’t limit you, capture any event you believe should occur.
2. Emergent structure
   • Establish a single timeline for system insight.
   • Emphasizing pivotal events
   • Applying frame sorting to bring structure
   • Engage in discussions to reveal divergent opinions and questions.
3. People and systems
   • Add roles and people to the narrative
   • Add systems that interact in the business flow
4. Explicit walkthrough
   • Good interaction between a narrator, a scribe and validating audience
   • Validate our model
5. Make value explicit
   • Which stages of our process create value for stakeholders?
6. Problem and opportunities
   • Visualize potential issues yet to arise and opportunities for system enhancement.
7. Arrow voting
   • Vote for urgency that brings focus or quantifies value.

Purpose 2: Design the future situation

1. Collaborative Design
2. Using Users Stories as a anchor for a future conversation and Event Storming as a format for that conversation
3. Using read models, policies, systems and actions
4. Pragmatic focus on low effort value
5. Drilling finding alternatives
6. Ampathic focus on emotions and feelings
7. Connecting the dots

Event storming is perfect for multiple situations

• Kickstart you project as contractor: Event Storming is the perfect workshop to create shared understanding as a kickstarter between client and contractor. Ideal for digital agencies.
• Explore and inventry business process: Inventory a detailed business process but also create shared understanding in the group of experts.
• New features: Event Storming can help map out the sequence of events and policies required for implementing a new feature, ensuring all aspects are considered.
• Legacy system Integration: When porting a legacy system into a modern digital environment, Event Storming can reveal dependencies and challenges to ensure a successful transition.
• Performance optimization: By visualizing event flows, Event Storming can identify bottlenecks and areas for performance optimization within a digital system.
• User journey mapping: valuable for mapping user journeys, helping teams understand user interactions, pain points, and opportunities for improvements.
• Microservices architecture design: In mature companies, when adopting or refining a microservices architecture, Event Storming can define clear boundaries between services and their interactions. The main benefit I see is the allignment and collabortion that sparks between teams.
• Data Synchronization: When dealing with distributed data across multiple systems, Event Storming can clarify synchronization requirements and ensure data consistency.
• Regulatory Compliance: Event Storming can help ensure that digital processes and systems adhere to regulatory requirements by visualizing data flows and process steps.
• Root cause analysis: In the event of system failures or incidents, Event Storming can be used to trace back events and identify the root causes for effective problem resolution.
• Process improvement: For ongoing process improvement, this workshop can uncover inefficiencies and suggest streamlined processes. In this way Event Storming can be your quarterly retrospectives in a scaled agile organization.
• Cross team collaboration: In large organizations, this workshop can facilitate collaboration among cross-functional teams by providing a shared understanding of complex systems and processes.