Recipe: Event‑storming workshop prep

Room & materials

• Paper roll (brown kraft, 1.2 m wide) covering one long wall.
• Six colours of super‑sticky notes — see legend below.
• Black Sharpies only (thick text forces brevity).
• One timer visible to everyone; 25‑minute rounds.

Sticky colour legend

Facilitator script (90 min)

1. Big‑picture events — everyone silently places orange stickies. No ordering yet. (15 min)
2. Timeline sort — group arranges stickies left‑to‑right. Duplicates merge; gaps get pink placeholders. (20 min)
3. Commands & aggregates — add blue and yellow stickies that trigger or encapsulate each event. (25 min)
4. Read models & policies — layer green and purple stickies. Identify bounded contexts with marker lines. (20 min)
5. Hot‑spot vote — three dot‑votes per person; discuss top three risks. (10 min)

Follow‑up cadence

Photograph the wall immediately. Transcribe into a shared Miro board within 24 hours. Schedule a 45‑minute “commit‑check” three days later to validate bounded contexts against real code.