Design system / rev A

Event Storming Board

A modelling surface for change-management requests. The chrome is monochrome steel on paper; all color in the product belongs to the sticky grammar, so the timeline reads as a legend at a glance. Conventions follow eventstorming.com, adapted where the digital medium can do better than a paper wall.

base
Industry
ground
#f2f2f3
steel
#5980a6
grid
8px / lane 208

Bounded contexts

Who owns the language. A dashed steel region carrying a cloud mark; a flat-bottomed cloud once collapsed.
  • Two independent structures. Phases are time and are derived from pivotal events. Contexts are ownership — a team, a system of record, a vocabulary. They often coincide; the board must not assume they do.
  • Expanded, a context is a dashed region with a marked tab. 1.5px dashed steel, label tab top-left in condensed caps, and a 16×9 cloud mark before the name. No fill, no color — the stickies inside keep their own hues. The region stays square because the grid is load-bearing; the mark is what says a whole language lives in here.
  • Contexts may be smaller than a phase, may cross a phase divider, and may recur. A recurring context is drawn as numbered segments (·1/2, ·2/2) with one shared name; renaming one renames all.
  • Crossing a context boundary is a publish, not a call. Any connector leaving a region gets the dotted "publishes to" style and a hollow square at the crossing point — the place to ask what the contract is.
  • Collapsed, a context is a cloud with a flat bottom. Bumps on top and sides, a straight baseline carrying the name and one line of metadata. Every free-form view — context map, message flow — draws contexts this way, and the mark in the region tab is the same shape shrunk, so it reads as one object either way. Stroke weight classifies: 2.6px core, 1.8px supporting or generic, 1.2px dashed grey outside our boundary.
  • The same word in two contexts is two words. When one term appears in two regions, the review queue raises it as a translation to confirm — "Vendor" in Risk is not "Vendor" in Finance.
The region, four readings
  • Risk & Compliance
    Assess vendor risk
    COMMAND · C-005 MK
    Risk rating assigned
    EVENT · E-006 MK
    expanded — dashed region, marked tab
  • Intake & Triage ·1/2
    Submit change request
    COMMAND · C-001 MK
    Change request submitted 2
    EVENT · E-002 MK
    recurring — ·1/2
  • Risk & Compliance
    Request security review
    COMMAND · C-007 MK
    Security review passed
    EVENT · E-008 MK
    nested, one level deep
  • Risk & Compliance CORE · 15
    collapsed — the cloud
Collapsed · flat-bottom cloud
  • Risk & Compliance CORE · 15
    core — 2.6px
  • Finance SUPPORTING · 6
    supporting — 1.8px
  • ServiceNow EXTERNAL
    external — 1.2px dashed grey
  • 16 × 9 mark — the region tab
bumps on top and sides · flat baseline holds name and metadata
The crossing square
  • unnamed — in the review queue
  • named — the pattern initial
Phases vs contexts
Phase 1 · Intake 4
Phase 2 · Assessment 8
Phase 3 · Execution 6
Phase 4 · Closure 4
Timeline aggregates · commands · events · policies
Intake & Triage ·1/2
Intake & Triage ·2/2
Risk & Compliance ·1/2
Risk & Compliance ·2/2
Finance
Scheduling
Vendor Master Data
Change Execution
UNKNOWN · ASK TOM

Nothing connects the CAB decision to Scheduling.

OPEN SINCE 2026-08-24

Systems & data external systems · read models
Friction free zone — hotspots, questions, opportunities
UNKNOWN · ASK PROCUREMENT

How does the vendor appear in ERP? Ask procurement.

OPEN SINCE 2026-08-19

the shipped Board at rung L0 — derived phase rail above, context regions below, no stickiesIntake & Triage and Risk & Compliance each recur as ·1/2 and ·2/2 under one name