5 Reliable Tricks To Maximize Shared Knowledge In Event Storming

3 minute read

Event Storming is all about exchanging as much domain knowledge as possible. From homework to role-play, here are five tips to maximize shared understanding.

A blackboard with "Knowledge" written with chalk. The main outcome of Event Storming is shared knowledge and understanding.

Do you remember that the prime goal of Event Storming is “Shared understanding”? Event Storming is a significant time investment. How do you ensure participants don’t leave the workshop feeling they could have learned or shared more?

Here are five tips you can use during an Event Storming to increase the flow of information between participants. These techniques will “Oil up the cogs” of domain knowledge sharing:

  • Maximize the domain knowledge that is exchanged
  • Nudge Domain Experts into a sharing mindset
  • Avoid people being “left to the side of the road” during the workshop
  • Formalize domain knowledge, ready to be written down as a reference
  • Help participants dive deeper into domain knowledge
  • As a bonus, help onboarding of newcomers

Here are the five tips.

Distribute domain-specific learning material

If you work in a complex domain, there is a lot to learn for developers. Think of newcomers, for example. They will have a hard time understanding all the discussions during the workshop. Fortunately, most of these complex domains have ready-made reference learning material.

Cover of Options, Futures and other Derivatives. Also known as 'The Hull', this book is 'the bible' of financial derivatives and a source of pre-requisite references to hand out before an Event Storming.

For example, derivative financial software has “The Hull.” It’s like the Bible of finance. Sharing snippets before the workshop will help people to hit the ground running.

Domain experts can play a crucial role here. Asking them to compile specific material for the upcoming workshop will be helpful for everyone. And as a bonus, you will get them more involved and engaged!

State the goal of ‘sharing over learning.’

Typical feedback from domain experts is: “I did not learn that much.” I now systematically repeat the primary goal of Event Storming at the beginning of a workshop: “The goal is 1st knowledge sharing, 2nd learning”. You can even cite or display Alberto Brandolini’s tweet:

Assign roles to domain experts

Running an Event Storming workshop is more challenging for business-to-business “off-the-shelf” vendors. Getting actual end-users or client domain experts to attend is almost impossible.

The trick is role-playing by assigning business roles to in-house domain experts. Don’t hesitate to have various roles for the different end-users. This way, all aspects of the business will be focused on. For example, if you were designing Airbnb, you could assign a ‘renter’ role to a domain expert who understands these users’ needs.

💡 If you cannot have real users in the Room, assign business roles to your domain experts.

Get help from your stakeholders; preparing the roles beforehand should be very easy.

Photo of a street actor. Role playing is a great way to make up for missing domain experts in DDD Event Storming

Ask new joiners to collect definitions

Newcomers are perfect for playing this candid role! If a newcomer is in the workshop, leverage the opportunity to ask them to write down definitions.

Newcomers don’t know much about the domain or the company. They are jargon detectors! Whenever they spot a word they don’t understand, their mission is to ask knowledgeable people to help them write a definition on a sticky note. By being active, they should also learn better!

Playing the silliest person in the room

One of Alberto’s tips is to play the silliest person in the room! It turns out it’s more complicated than it seems!

Playing the silliest person means asking candid questions. The goal is to ask questions others might be too shy to ask, encouraging a more open and inclusive discussion. You’ll have to follow the workshop’s content to ask these questions. Following the content at the same time as facilitating is tricky. If you’re a beginning facilitator, ask someone else to play the silliest person in the room 😉.

Conclusion

Most of these tips happen before or right at the beginning of the workshop. So next time you facilitate Event Storming, take the time to use these techniques when you prepare. These are invisible yet powerful nudges that will make Event Storming more successful.


This blog post is part of the 1h Event Storming book that we are currently writing.

This post was built from 2 posts originally published on Philippe’s blog 21 More Event Storming Tips, and 4 tips that will make your DDD Big Picture Event Storming successful

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