Remote Big Picture Event Storming Template Instructions and Learnings from facilitating one
event-storming domain-driven-design domain-modeling Product and Tech
FigJam template link: https://www.figma.com/community/file/1483439260615759252 Instructions based mainly on notes from Alberto Brandolini’s “Event Storming” book
Template instructions
- invite the right people
- 8 to 12 people is the recommended amount for online sessions
- 2 hour sessions, preferably in the mornings, so everybody is rested and with energy
- Before the meeting: share the board link and ask people to validate they have edit rights (not just view rights)
- Before the meeting: pre-seed the board with some possible candidates to be Pivotal events
- this is necessary when remote because it’s hard to see the whole board at once, so we need some sort of pre-seeded structure
- unhide the agenda and the legend as you go (covered by the “not yet” gray boxes)
- “(the workshop) has to be not too challenging, not too easy, just right”
- Agenda Suggestion
- Intros + Objectives + How + Show Legend + Shortcuts/tips (5 minutes)
- keep it short so you front load the value
- Warm Up (5 minutes)
- Do it sync, everybody together. Put the first event on the board, ask the next person to do the same.
- Key Events Brain dump (10-15 min)
- set a timer to 10 minutes, add more time if needed
- Enforce/sort a timeline (until it’s good enough)
- Rush to the goal - this means getting to the end of the user journey as fast as possible. you do this by:
- adding hotspots where there might be fails scenarios we need to map
- adding hotspots where there is disagreement or misalignment between team members
- adding hotspots where there might be open questions
- if the model is too big, you might use arrow voting to narrow down an area of interest to focus first
- give another pass solving the main hotspots
- use the sorting strategies listed in the template
- rotate the narrator so you keep everybody engaged (rounds of 5-7 minutes)
- Rush to the goal - this means getting to the end of the user journey as fast as possible. you do this by:
- keep going with what’s necessary for the team/group (when above is good enough or next sessions)
- options
- Adding commands/people/systems should bring more clarity to the model
- Adding Policies/Information/Read Models will also bring more clarity but you’d probably start moving into the process modeling flavor of the Event Storming (not the Big Picture).
- Exploring value created/destroyed could be interesting if you are modeling a new product of feature
- consider each of this options as a time-boxed experiment (20-30 min)
- copy the board and if the experiment fail, just go back to the previous board
- if the experiment is generating value, keep at it
- options
- wrap up (10 min)
- access goal completion and next steps
- Intros + Objectives + How + Show Legend + Shortcuts/tips (5 minutes)
Learnings from facilitating a session for the first time
- do not skip the following step, no matter what. We lost around 10 minutes figuring it out.
- Before the meeting: share the board link and ask people to validate they have edit rights (not just view rights)
- we did it with 12 participants, which is the recommended upper bound limit for online event storming sessions. I still thought it was too much due to the amount of events in the board and that you only have one channel of communication (audio, only one person can speak at a time). I’d reduce the upper bound limit to 6/8 people, specially if you’re facilitating it for the first time.
- enforcing a timeline is hard and takes time. I had planned for 30 minutes in this phase, but it took the whole meeting and I wouldn’t say we managed to resolve all hotspots and have a clear timeline of events at the end. Doing it again, I’d plan for a whole 2 hour session to get to the end of this phase.
