What is Event Storming?

Why Should You Consider Using Event Storming When Developing Software Systems?

Common Challenges in Software Projects

Experience from numerous software projects shows that achieving effective communication between business representatives and system developers is a major challenge. Traditional methods are often too complicated, which limits business involvement. As a result, system solutions are typically driven by the limited understanding of business needs among technical teams, leading to systems that fall short of expectations.

Event Storming is specifically designed to reduce the barrier between business and development, facilitating greater involvement from business stakeholders in the modeling process.

Tackling the “Silo Problem” with Event Storming

Another common challenge is the “silo effect,” where employees generally have limited knowledge of what happens in other departments. This can lead to task duplication, unnecessary inter-departmental issues, or delays.

Event Storming helps break down these silos by quickly fostering a shared understanding of the big picture. This often reveals bottlenecks and builds consensus around shared challenges. The result is a focus on initiatives that create the most value for the organization as a whole and systems that optimally support business needs.

Why Event Storming Is So Powerful

Event Storming is built on a simple yet ingenious concept: the Key Domain Event. A Key Domain Event is an event in a business process described in past tense, such as “order placed.” This concept is easy for everyone to grasp, encouraging high levels of business involvement.

During Event Storming workshops, domain experts and developers collaborate to explore business processes effectively. They brainstorm and identify Key Domain Events, which are then organized along a timeline. Once the basic flow is mapped, further details, such as actors, systems, business rules, or pain points are added.

Event Storming is highly flexible, allowing you to tailor the approach to your goals and participants.

Three Levels of Event Storming

There are 3 levels of Event Storming:

Big Picture: Maps the organization as a whole to identify major problems or opportunities.
Process Modeling: Focuses on a specific business process, detailing it from start to finish, including alternative flows.
Software Design: Helps jumpstart system development, identifying components, boundaries, and subsystems (Bounded Contexts and Aggregates in Domain-Driven Design).

Benefits of Event Storming

Quick to get started
Easy to understand—no technical knowledge required
No need for complex tools
Adaptable to specific goals
Maximizes domain experts' knowledge
Highlights bottlenecks or conflict areas
Builds cross-departmental understanding
Fosters consensus on priorities
Ensures everyone has a voice

Getting Started with Event Storming

At Qlerify, we have extensive experience with Event Storming and offer a unique cloud-based tool tailored for this methodology. Try our tool for free here.

We also provide open and custom courses on Event Storming, in partnership with NFI. More information about the course can be found here: Event Storming Course

Need help getting started? We facilitate Event Storming workshops both on-site and remotely via Zoom, using supporting modeling tools.