Collaborative Modelling

Why do we need collaborative modelling? The answer is plain and simple: it’s incredibly more efficient. It captures objections earlier, makes them visible, and allows us to build a solution with broader support and a faster path to successful implementation.

The EventStorming recipe

Formal modelling systems, like BPMN or UML activities, tend to be owned by one specific side of the organisation. The formal precision of the notation hinders successful feedback loops. The “shared” design is only theoretically validated, but we’re probably hiding the objections under the carpet.
Other representations often replace formal correctness with neatness, creating a different barrier to effective collaboration. To keep the model tidy, feedback needs to be mediated by a specialist.
EventStorming flips both approaches, providing a minimalistic lo-fi grammar that quickly allows every party to join the discussion and contribute to the model. Some facilitation tricks will steer the discussion toward a meaningful solution.

If you are curious about ways to facilitate and leverage collaborative modelling’s potential in your EventStorming sessions, this talk, “Joys and Pitfalls of Collaborative Modelling“, from DDDEurope 2019, can provide some inspiration.

A widely supported solution

In an EventStorming modelling session, disagreement is part of the model, and every participant can make their objections visible. As the modelling progresses, issues are clarified, resolved, or escalated when necessary.
Progressively, one or more solutions will emerge, considering the needs of the different parties involved. The same activity is also a “buy-in generator” for the following implementation: when design considers the stakeholder needs from the start, the consensus is a byproduct.

Our superpower?

Over the last few years, EventStorming has led us on a path of accelerated learning. We dissected architectures and processes from various industries worldwide, modelled solutions in widely different fields, and had the privilege of discovering patterns and commonalities.

Showing our support

We believe in collaborative modelling so much that we sponsored and supported COMOCamp, the first conference about collaborative modelling in Vienna.