Manager? This is for you!

Introduction

Event modeling is a process that helps managers overcome common difficulties in project management, such as miscommunication, delays, and cost overruns. It involves breaking down complex processes into clear, manageable pieces, creating a visual timeline, and identifying key events and dependencies.

If you are more of a technical Person this Blog might be for you!

Problems as a Manager

Being a manager can be quite full of pressures and deadlines. The workers have their own ideas, the other teams have difficulty communicating with each other, and somehow all the different teams need to come together to create this final software on time without issues.

Especially in a software development project, it can be even harder to collaborate with the IT team. Somehow they can’t seem to fully understand what is needed at what time and there are always issues coming up, further delaying the project. Major issues such as project plan and requirements changing after a project has already begun can lead to delays, increased costs, and even strain the people you work with. Meeting client deadlines, the different teams underestimating the whole project, while more issues come up during the project and inefficient processes can make any manager go crazy.

Challenges in Project Management

It is also very difficult to allocate the exact amount of people, budget, and tools to a project. Managers around the world highlight the major issues as miscommunication between many team members, departments, and clients: which can lead to misunderstandings, heated meetings, errors, and disappointment. Sometimes, to meet tight deadlines, shortcuts and not the best solutions in software development can be made, which leads to future problems and making the software not good quality. It can result in even more expensive and harder-to-fix issues later on. Managing different teams with many people from different backgrounds can be a challenge to allocate different parts of the project and to put the entire project together on time can be stressful. Especially when conflicts arise or different people pushing responsibility to each other when there is a mistake can be frustrating. In addition, making sure all the different teams understand the entire idea of the final software solution can be interpreted differently and cause misalignment in the solution, further requiring longer and more money to fix the issues.

It is complex to identify all the risks upcoming before starting the project. It would be perfect to have a major blueprint of the entire project that every single team can understand without the need for technical language or a common background in training. On top of all the constraints, creating a software solution within the budget can be difficult to estimate before the project begins, since the different needs of the project are not fully clear yet.

Knowledge Transfer and Documentation

Let us say, the project is delivered on time and well. However, more issues come when people leave work or when new employees are hired. There are issues in knowledge transfer and documentation of the project. Sometimes knowledge is lost between the departments and different employees, bringing out the need for an efficient way to document and transfer knowledge between team members and different departments for the long-term plan. It can be hard to track the progress of the project precisely, and to report to stakeholders can be especially hard. They want answers, meanwhile the developing team talks about their field-specific problems. It can be difficult to clearly point out where the project is at, when it will be done, and how much exactly is needed. Sometimes, the client changes ideas or expectations suddenly. It can leave the entire different departments in chaos and can be very hard to navigate towards the new correct goal. It is hard to implement change into a team without changing the workflow or changing the motivation level of the team. Under such circumstances, modern managers work and it can be stressful.

How Can Event Modeling Help You as a Manager?

On a bright side, there is a way to help overcome all these common difficulties. Event modeling is a process which can overcome these issues. Imagine a big party is in the planning. Everything needs to run smoothly and not disappoint the guests.

First, all the important processes which need to happen will be written out. This is similar to what event modeling is, however, it is for computer systems and businesses. Event modeling is a way to plan how business processes or computer systems should work and function. It highlights all the significant business capabilities and organizes everything which will be needed during the process.

In the example, it would be when someone buys the ticket to the party or when the food arrives. Event modeling is very useful for companies that work with multiple people; it helps everyone who is working on the project understand complex processes better and see the whole picture. It is similar to a storyboard, but instead of a drawing of different scenes, significant moments in software design or the business process would be shown. It helps the team see how everything they do will fit together to create the bigger picture and foresee any problems before they even happen.

Steps of Event Modeling:

Step 1: Identify Processes Firstly, identify the key processes. For a party, these might include: Guests, Decorations, Food orders, Allergies, Music Playlists, Party start time, Party end time, etc. Write each process on an orange sticky note in the past tense, like “Guest arrived,” “Decorations set up,” “Food ordered,” “Allergies identified,” and so on.

Step 2: Create a Timeline Next, arrange these processes in a timeline, just like telling a story. This helps to visualize what is needed and when. It allows teams to check if they’ve missed anything or if any processes are out of order.

Step 3: Draw Simple Pictures For each person involved in the event, such as the host, guests, DJ, and chef, draw simple pictures or wireframes. These show what each person sees or does at different points in the timeline. For example, guests might see an invitation letter, the host might see the guest list, and the DJ might see the music playlist.

Step 4: Detail Actions and Information Flow For every action (blue sticky notes) someone takes, write down all the information needed for that action and what should happen next. This creates a logical flow map. For instance, what the DJ needs to play music or what the chef needs to prepare food.

Step 5: Identify Required Information List all the information required for the event. For the party, this might include a guest list, budget summary, music playlist, allergen list, etc. Write these details on green sticky notes.

Step 6: Group Processes into Components Group related processes together into components. For example, Planning, Guest Management, and Activities. Organize these processes into manageable parts.

Step 7: Create Message Processing Patterns Determine how information flows between different parts of the system. This is like figuring out how messages would be passed between different teams working on the party, with focus on the different policies and scenarios.

Benefits of Event Modeling

Event modeling serves as a simple blueprint that everyone on the team can understand, regardless of their technical background. It transforms the entire plan into a visual timeline, allowing the team to spot potential issues before they arise. Its flexibility makes future changes easier to handle. By focusing on key events, it ensures that crucial parts of the process are prioritized. This blueprint aids communication, keeps everyone aligned, and assigns clear responsibilities, reducing the chance of mistakes. It fosters better collaboration and understanding among team members, leading to more efficient and effective solutions. Event modeling is about breaking down complex processes into clear, manageable pieces, improving clarity and efficiency across the board.

Moreover, event modeling helps in predicting the time and cost required for software development. By visualizing each step and its dependencies, teams can estimate the duration of each process. This clear timeline allows for accurate planning and budgeting. Understanding the sequence and effort needed for each task enables better resource allocation, leading to a more predictable and manageable software development cycle. As a result, teams can provide more reliable time and cost estimates to stakeholders, reducing uncertainty and enhancing project management.

Additional Resources

You can read more about each step for a successful event modeling workshop on eventmodeling.org.

If you are more technical and want to know the best practices of Event Modeling for Systems Engineers, you can read more about it here.