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CukenFest: Q&A with Bruno Boucard and Thomas Pierrain

Theo England

In the build up to our annual Behaviour-Driven Development conference, CukenFest London (April 4th-5th 2019), we've taken some time to chat to a few of our workshop leads and speakers about their experiences delivering software and what people will learn attending their session.

This time we sat down with Bruno Boucard and Thomas Pierrain. Bruno and Thomas will run a workshop session on Event Storming and Example Mapping, two techniques which have come to prominence in the last couple of years which help teams build understanding and explore the different routes to delivering value.

Your workshop "Experience Event Storming with Example Mapping" will take place on April 5th. What can attendees expect to learn?​

Attendees will learn to use two complementary exploration techniques to better understand how to effectively move from the problem space to the solution space. By articulating those two techniques that have already been proven in their respective contexts, we get an incredible way to understand and to share what really matters in a very short time.

There's a lot of cross over between the BDD and DDD communities - both have similar strategies of building shared understanding and exploring the problem space in great detail. What drew you to both communities?​

Both communities are interested in the what and the why. Not only the how.

Building software in stereotypical silos is frustrating. Poor communication between stakeholders leads to limited understanding which results in buggy software. Practices like BDD and DDD allows "eXtreme Programmers" like us to deepen our understanding and deliver value to the business.

For someone who is unfamiliar with Domain-Driven Design what books, articles, videos would you point them to and why?​

  • For folks in development roles who want to understand what is DDD and how it can help them in their daily work: Let’s reboot DDD! by Thomas Pierrain and Jérémie Grodziski [link]
  • The Blue Book that started everything for DDD: Domain Driven Design by Eric Evans [link]
  • Probably the best introduction ever to DDD in books: Patterns, Principles, and Practices of Domain-Driven Design, by Nick Tune and Scott Millet [link] and this free leaflet: Anatomy of DDD by Scott Millett [link]
  • Alberto Brandolini explaining the Event Storming techniques and how it relates to DDD: GOTO 2018 50.000 Orange Stickies Later by Alberto Brandolini [link]

Both communities have been strong for ~15+ years. What do you think are the main contributors to their longevity?​

Smart and passionate people who believe that we can't continue to work and produce software like this. I also think for many it's about finding meaning in our work and doing things the right way.

Event Storming and Example Mapping are two exploration techniques serving business value. Both share the same core concepts of visualisation and conversations. By visualising simple elements, both techniques offer the opportunity to have structured conversations. And its this mixture of a general vision (Event Storming) and a detailed vision (Example Mapping) which strengthens understanding within the team.

There is definitely no silver bullet, but the secret lies in the diversity of techniques used: Impact Mapping, User Story Mapping are other techniques to discover the unknown serenely.

Thanks both! Cya in London.

Thomas and Bruno will run a workshop on Event Storming and Example Mapping at CukenFest on April 5th.