All tools are summarized in Tools for a Consultant’s Work - Summary.
Event Storming
Once we have defined our goal, a great next workshop is Event Storming, described by Alberto Brandolini. This technique allows us to visualize what our final solution will look like, considering various scenarios and edge cases.
Unfortunately, this is often lacking when planning our solution, both technically and business-wise. People naturally think along the “happy-path,” ignoring specific cases. The solution is usually so large that it exceeds their perception capabilities, making it difficult to identify all possible gaps.
This can be very detrimental. If we do not find these problems during the planning stage, we will only find them during implementation. By then, it is usually too late to respond optimally, and quick, suboptimal fixes are made. The longer we operate this way, the worse our solution becomes.
Kadr książki Introducing Event Storming - https://leanpub.com/introducing_eventstorming
Event Storming allows us to visualize the entire business process, considering various aspects and how our employees/systems operate. Seeing the whole picture makes it easier to spot gaps or inconsistencies, propose improvements, and identify the most critical issues to address. Additionally, we consolidate our knowledge of the process by sharing our perspectives.
The workshop starts with a chaotic and almost unrestricted (nearly) dump of all our knowledge onto the wall. At first glance, this looks strange—the wall is dynamically filled with rows of sticky notes without any order. This quickly amasses a large amount of knowledge, which we use in subsequent stages.
With the notes on the wall, we can then structure them. We organize our process, giving it a specific shape—showing where it begins, splits, and ends. We can divide into smaller groups focusing on specific areas or share knowledge collectively. Different colored sticky notes help us focus on various aspects—problems, improvements, definitions, personas, systems, metrics, and more. Essentially, our only limit is our own imagination.
The workshop ends with a visualization of the entire process. Participants understand its course and can identify the most critical areas to continue working on. We establish a common language, simplifying internal communication within the organization.
Example of Use
A Software House needed to visualize the entire process of delivering IT systems to identify gaps in this process. Programming was only a narrow part of this. First, they needed technical area leaders, defined recruitment processes, knowledge of how to promote their skills, the ability to estimate projects, and to build the target team and start working. This is a broad process with many potential gaps and inconsistencies.
Event Storming allowed the visualization of the entire process, from deciding to enter a particular technology area to deploying and maintaining the system for the client. Many problems that were not visible externally were identified. Additionally, a lack of one competency area was noticed, causing significant losses in the entire process.
Why is it Beneficial?
In a very short time, we can visualize our way of operating and make decisions based on it: what is missing, what to improve, and what to eliminate. The technique is very lightweight and can be used in any group, both technical and non-technical.
