What is an Opportunity?

Event Storming is a collaborative workshop technique used to explore complex domains by visualizing the flow of events within a system. It’s primarily used in the context of Domain-Driven Design (DDD) to map out how different elements interact with each other.

An opportunity in EventStorming is an idea for improving a business process. It represents a potential enhancement, a solution to a problem, or a new feature that is identified during the modeling workshop.

How Opportunities Emerge

During an EventStorming session, as participants map out a business process using domain events (orange stickies), they often uncover inefficiencies, pain points, or areas that could be streamlined. These discoveries are captured as opportunities. They are not part of the current process but are suggestions for the future.

Key triggers for identifying opportunities include:

• Solving a problem: When a "hotspot" or issue (often marked with a pink/magenta sticky) is identified, an opportunity can be a proposed solution.‍
• Improving the process: Participants might see a way to make the process faster, cheaper, or more user-friendly.‍
• Adding business value: An idea might emerge for a new feature that could generate revenue or increase customer satisfaction.

Visual Representation

In EventStorming, an opportunity is typically represented by a light green sticky note. This visual cue helps distinguish suggestions for improvement from the existing process flow. They are often placed near the part of the process they are intended to improve.

For example, if a "hotspot" sticky notes that "Customer often complains about long delivery times," a green "opportunity" sticky might be placed next to it saying, "Offer express shipping option."

In essence, opportunities are the actionable, forward-looking outcomes of an EventStorming session, turning insights from mapping the present state into concrete suggestions for a better future state.