The Big Picture method is designed to recognize as many different processes as possible in the shortest amount of time, allowing us to quickly focus on the most important ones. Look at an example session conducted for Rowerek.pl:
First, we go through all the elements that constitute a typical Event Storming workshop, visualizing events, problems and opportunities, people and external companies. Every participant can add their own card, no one is excluded. Afterwards it’s time for appropriate structuring. This can take a while, and can, depending on the size of the group, be divided into several parts.
The entire workshop can be conducted in just a few hours, extending or omitting the steps if needed. Finally, it’s time for summarizing and discussion about the next steps.
Benefits
Clear process visualization
The Big Picture workshops let us recognize what processes exist in our company on a high level. All people involved share their actions, showcasing the number and complexity of employee activities.
Post-workshop, we begin to realize the scale of our project, including respective transitions between departments and problematic fields.
Knowledge exchange
Thanks to an Event Storming workshop, we can notice and become aware of aspects of the work of our colleagues that we’ve never seen before. This will facilitate quicker and easier knowledge exchange, especially regarding the processes which we’re not directly involved in. This leads to a significant improvement in communication between teams and strengthening cooperation.
Showcasing the problems
While working on daily tasks, we can easily neglect solving recurring problems and simply push them to the back of our head. Furthermore, the problems that other departments face may escape our understanding.
Visualizing problems in the form of distinct, eye-catching cards leads to easier comprehension by other employees. Consequently, a better understanding of the process encourages problem solving and the exchange of experience.
Duration of the workshop
Conducting a Big Picture workshop is a way to involve a lot of people in a short time. Because everyone acts at the same time, a workshop lasting several hours can effectively replace several days of traditional meetings including coffee break and dessert (most likely less effective).
Motivational boost
A properly conducted workshop engaged people from various departments, granting them irreplaceable insight. People in non-decisive positions get a chance to comprehend how complex the entire “business machine” is and what role they play in the context of the entire company, which can improve their motivation. A Big Picture workshop clearly shows the company’s development prospects and outlines a common goal that everyone should strive for.
Possible issues
Not going through all the processes
Conducting a workshop on a company-wide scale does not leave much space for details. Some events will end up being duplicated, some events may have no connection to the rest. Let’s face it: you won’t be able to achieve every goal during a single meeting.
In this kind of a situation, it’s best to resort to additional workshops or separate meetings, focused only on a selected part of the company’s life.
Depending on the number of processes you might want to visualize or the number of participants, especially with a larger number of participants. This can help motivate the participants to look at the bigger picture and collect more information during a single meeting.
Conflicts between employees
Our attention should lie where conflicts can easily arise, for example regarding differences in the approach to a given process. They can easily turn into personal conflicts, where one person tries to impose their will on the other - by urging to change the way of thinking about the process, not describing the problems that occur, etc. Failing to detect this type of tendency may lead to killing of promising initiatives and even withdrawal of some people from a discussion revolving the process.
The facilitator should act quickly and tactfully alleviate disputes and help resolve them constructively. If an immediate response is not possible, you must adopt the “agree to disagree” stance. We should mark each disagreement spot with appropriate cards so that the conflict situation is clear to everyone.
Conflicts between departments
Sometimes various departments of the same company are not on the best terms with each other. This can lead to a spiteful approach manifesting in things such as false accusations of blaming mistakes on the other side.
Workshops can address this problem, but you must be careful not to accidentally accuse any departments involved during the conversation. If the representants start feeling attacked, they may further close themselves off to any arguments.
Environmental problems
The company is a collection of people from different backgrounds and with different education. Some people may not want to take part in workshops because they do not see a greater need for them. They may also sabotage them, thinking that we are only carrying them out to increase the company’s profits at the expense of its employees.
Therefore, it is worth mentioning their broader purpose at the beginning of the workshop. We do not meet just to let the “management” know how its employee’s work. We meet because we want to improve the problems they encounter every day in the long term. And this requires cooperation and common understanding.
Summary
The main benefit of the Event Storming workshop is gaining a broad view of the processes in the company. It becomes clear which are logical and understandable and which cause most of the problems. You can also pinpoint the points of contact between the departments and possible misunderstandings. As a result, we can make more conscious and informed decisions regarding our efforts towards improving the company’s work (in business processes, but also teams).
The workshop conducted for Rowerek.pl allowed us to go through the most important elements of work and identify the areas that require our intervention, all in mere hours. The exchange of knowledge showed how our colleagues work, and some of the conflicts could be resolved on the spot.
