Define actions that unlock lasting workflow improvements

Struggling to identify real workflow improvements? Discover how to set small, actionable steps and drive lasting change in your team’s process!

Expecting change without action is like waiting for your laundry to fold itself — it won’t happen, no matter how hard you wish!

The same goes for your workflow. Simply pinpointing improvement levers is not enough. Without clear, small actions, your workflow remains a tangle of potential without progress.

💡 Wait, why did you want to run an Event Storming the flow again? To escape endless firefighting and address persistent issues in your workflow. This journey helped you visualize, understand, and identify levers to act for real change.

This post helps you transform the identified levers into specific, actionable actions for lasting change.

Select the most relevant variables.

Assign each participant one or two votes and ask them to vote on the variable(s) near the bottom right of the chart in the previous step.

This area of the chart is where “input” variables are positioned. Input variables are the ones you can directly influence and potentially have a big impact on the workflow.

Ask participants to vote on the variables they feel they can have more direct influence.

You can tell them:

You have 2 votes to place in the bottom right quadrant where the variables that we can act on are situated. Among these there might be some that you have access or control to. Favor voting on these.

Identify small and feasible actions

This step is inspired by the Liberating Structure 15% solution

Taking one of the previous variables at a time, prompt participants to answer the following question:

“What is the first thing you can personally do to [verb(change, reduce, improve, develop)] the [variable name], without more resources or authority?“

First, make it an individual reflection and then a small group s of 3 to 4 conversations.

Ask small groups to select the most relevant ideas for the next step.

Use an action template.

Hand out an action template and explain that the goal is to make actions as tangible and small as possible, as most of the time, actions remain too big, too broad, or sound too much wishful thinking.

First, give each group 10 min to fill one action template. Then ask each group to read each other’s actions . Unless there are questions about the actions, ask one person to volunteer for each action to ensure it will be performed.

Planning actions and following-up and next

The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.

Of course, small actions will not fix all the big issues with your workflow. That is why it is important to plan the next follow-up. The rule here is: the earlier the better.

Small actions are done in short iterations. The goal is to promptly offer an opportunity to inspect the results of the actions and adapt. Plan a follow-up call or session in a few days or weeks (at most). You do not need all the participants for this short call or session, but the main contributors to the actions.

On this occasion, use questions such as:

• What did you plan to do?
• What did you actually do?
• What happened? What about the [variable name] evolution?
• What’s next?

Several iterations may be needed, but with perseverance, the variable will move, and the workflow will improve.

Conclusion

Small actions are often difficult to identify. In this post we explained in this post how to focus on specific variables and refine tangible actions to perform the smallest ones. This lets us quickly reflect on the results and adapt.

The work you performed during the Event Storming of the flow can feed these actions for several months! What is described in this post can be repeated several times before your workflow has changed so much that it is worth doing a new Event Storming again, maybe in 9 to 15 months, as a rule of thumb.

Congratulations, you are done! You can close the Event Storming the flow session. You have gone a long way. Identifying small actions to improve your workflow is a great outcome. And you should be proud of it.

Yet, there is more! You opened the door to new ways of analyzing and dealing with recurring issues in your workflow. Your team is now able to see their workflow less as a chronological series of actions and more as a set of interrelated feedback loops on which they can act.

In the next post we will summarize all the journey. But for the moment, it’s probably time to celebrate with your team!

---

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