The Collaborative Event Storming Tool Your Team Needs

Searching for the right Event Storming tool?

Whiteboards can be messy and hard to manage for remote teams. Qlerify provides a dedicated online Event Storming tool that enhances collaboration, provides structure, and uses AI to accelerate your design process from start to finish.

To get started, log in to Qlerify or sign up for free, create a new project, and follow this step-by-step guide. We will walk you through the detailed steps of conducting a Software Design-level Event Storming session in Qlerify.

For a deeper dive into the method, you can also read our complete article on the topic: Event Storming - The Complete Guide.

Step 1: Create a new Workflow

Create a new, empty Workflow and open it. You should see a view similar to the image below. This is your blank workspace, where you can Add a starting point, Generate a workflow with AI, or review and update Settings. You can also invite team members to collaborate on the project.

For more details about this view, click the question mark icon.

Step 2: Review card types

Open the Settings by clicking the cogwheel above the Workflow diagram, then select the Cards tab.

When you create a new Workflow in Qlerify, a default set of card types is provided. These can be used for Big Picture, Process Modeling, and Software Design-level Event Storming. You can add, update, and remove card types based on your needs. The default setup includes the following card types:

The card types Given-When-Then and User Story are not typically part of standard Event Storming. However, if you want to enhance your Software Design session, feel free to include Given-When-Then (GWT). In this example, though, we will leave them out.

Go ahead and update the Card Type Settings:

• Show in backlog: Under this heading, make Problem and Opportunity visible in the backlog by clicking the eye icon to remove the strikethrough line. This allows us to prioritize Problems and Opportunities at the end of the session and plan them into iterations.
• Use AI: Under this heading, untick Given-When-Then and Read Model. Tick Problem and Opportunity. This ensures that AI generates Problems and Opportunities instead of GWTs and Read Models.

• Command: Under this heading, make sure the type Command is selected.
• Aggregate Root: Under this heading, ensure the type Aggregate Root is selected.
• Rename the card type Aggregate Root to only Aggregate (because we are doing Event Storming and not building a full Domain Model). Update the description to:
  • "The aggregate that the command is invoked on in this step of the process."

Note: There are three special card types (Command, Read Model and Aggregate Root) that we use to be able to group Commands and Events around Aggregates at the end of our Software Design session.

Note: If you think Aggregate is a confusing term, feel free to change it to something like "Entity" or "Information Object". ‍

Finally, you can review—and update if needed—the descriptions of each card type by clicking Show description. These descriptions are used for AI prompting.

Step 3: Generate with AI

You can generate full workflows with AI whenever you start with a blank canvas by clicking "Generate Workflow with AI". Once you started adding events to a workflow, this button will no longer be visible.

There are several LLMs (Large Language Models) available for you to use. In this example, we used ChatGPT-4o. You can select your preferred LLM from several options in the workflow Settings (under the AI tab).

Click on "Generate Workflow with AI", then click in the text area at the top of the dialog. Now select "A CRM process used by Salesforce." from the list displayed. Feel free to modify it to make it more detailed if you want:

• Example of a simple prompt: "A CRM process used by Salesforce."
• Example of a more detailed prompt: "A CRM process used by Salesforce, including the steps: Lead created by Sales Person, Lead qualified by Sales Manager, Opportunity created by Sales Person, etc."

Next, deselect all three checkboxes "Generate Command..", "Generate Entities.." and "Generate Read Model..". These are used for Event Modeling and Domain-Driven Design. Now click "Generate Workflow."

Once the AI generation is complete, you may end up with a result similar to the example below, though the variation can be significant.

Step 4: Collaborate

Now, collaborate with your team by going through the workflow step by step to ensure each step is correct. You can invite all your team members to Qlerify for real-time co-editing. Sometimes, it’s best if one person navigates the tool while others contribute verbally. This depends on the situation and your facilitation style.

Start with the first event, "Created Lead," and follow these steps:

1. Review Event: Is the event correct, or should another event come before it? Qlerify makes it extremely fast and easy to rearrange events using drag & drop. You can also generate or manually add new events using the menu that appears under a selected event.

2. Check Actor / Role: Qlerify uses swimlanes to represent actors or roles, making it easy to see each participant’s involvement in the process. If the swimlanes are incorrect, you can:
   • Rename swimlanes
   • Reorder swimlanes
   • Add new swimlanes (use the button under the diagram)
   • Drag and drop events between swimlanes

3. Open the Sidebar: If the event (e.g., "Created Lead") is correct, select it and open the sidebar if it’s not already open.

4. In the sidebar, update the Command name if necessary. If you’d like to modify the AI-generated Aggregate name, you can do so as well.

Note: In Software Design Event Storming, each event should correspond to one state-changing command that operates on a single aggregate. If an event is not state-changing, consider leaving it out. If one event corresponds to multiple commands, split it into multiple events.

‍Note: When updating the Aggregate, a combo box will appear, allowing you to generate entities. At this stage, we will not generate entities but instead use a free text label for the Aggregate name. For more details on using Entities, see our articles on Domain-Driven Design and Event Modeling.

5. Identify Hotspots (Problems and Opportunities): What are the problems and opportunities in this step of the process? Discuss with your team. Add new Problems or Opportunities manually or with AI. You can revisit and iterate over all cards later.
6. Decisions / Policies: In the original Event Storming method, a policy (purple card or “lie detector”) must be placed after each event. In Qlerify, we have chosen to use Decisions / Policies only when there is a branching point in the process. Some might think this is incorrect, but in our experience, this approach works well in practice.
   • Add decisions only when there is a branching point—don’t overdo it.
   • We recommend modeling the most valuable path first (the "happy path") before adding too many branches.

7. An Alternative Approach to Decisions: Sometimes, it’s easier to use another approach to decisions. Instead of placing a decision after an event, you can add a Given-When-Then (GWT) condition to the next event to specify what is required in order for the workflow to continue.

Step 5: Iterate

Now, repeat Step 4 for each event, refining your workflow iteratively. You don’t need to complete everything in a single session—you can revisit your workflow and refine it in separate sessions with different groups of people.

Things to Keep in Mind:

• Begin by completing the most valuable path (the "happy path"), then move on to the most important alternative paths.
• In Qlerify, events are always displayed either fully to the left or directly after a vertical divider. All other events will be positioned one step to the right of their parent event. Although this might take some time to get used to, it makes modeling extremely fast once you’re familiar with it. You'll never waste time manually rearranging lines and boxes again!

• You can introduce new starting points by clicking "+ Add start point" under the diagram. These can be merged with existing events as needed.

• Click "+ Add group" once to create a new group or twice to add two groups separated by a vertical divider. Align events horizontally by stacking them at the beginning of a group. We recommend using Groups to divide your canvas into separate Phases or Stages.

Step 6 (Optional): Read Models and Commands

Qlerify offers powerful support for defining Entities, Read Model Attributes, and Command Attributes. For more information on these features, see our articles on Event Modeling and Domain-Driven Design (links in the footer).

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Step 7: Aggregates View and Bounded Contexts

Qlerify provides an instant view of Commands and Events grouped around Aggregates. This view is located under the workflow diagram in the Domain Model tab.

The view might look similar to the image below. Each command (the blue boxes) has its corresponding event on the right side, aligned at the same height. Here, you can see a summary of your aggregates and the commands available on each aggregate.

The next step is to assign a bounded context to each aggregate. To do this, click "Select bounded context." After creating and selecting bounded contexts, for example Lead Management and CRM, the view may look something like this:

Step 8: Wrap Up

You have now captured the workflow and identified bounded contexts, aggregates, commands, actors, problems, and opportunities (and maybe even some GWTs). You have built the foundation of the domain model.

Now, you can further refine your model by specifying entities, read models, and write models in detail. For more information, see our articles on Event Modeling and Domain-Driven Design.

As a final step, review the identified problems, opportunities, and GWTs, and plan them into iterations.

You can use either the Backlog or the User Story Map view. In this example, we use the User Story Map, which is located in a tab under the Workflow.

1. Assign Problems, Opportunities, User Stories, or GWTs to releases.
2. Use the filter above the diagram to focus on one or multiple releases and see how the planned improvements impact the end-to-end workflow.