How CPAPDropShip.com Modeled Their Order Fulfillment Process Using Event Storming

CPAPDropShip.com helps Durable Medical Equipment (DME) suppliers better manage follow up care with their patients. It also provides suppliers with an affordable drop ship service to quickly get top, name brand equipment to their patient's door.

The existing software backing their service served them well for over ten years. At the same time, new features and functionality were getting more difficult to add. On top of that, many existing features were no longer being used.

Before embarking on a massive effort to rewrite or refactor their software, CPAPDropShip.com needed to know exactly which features were still relevant. With that information, they would be able to decide the best course of action.

A two day Event Storming session facilitated by Beau Simensen helped them to...

Gain detailed understanding of their existing business processes

From the outside, managing a drop shipping order fulfillment process may not sound complicated. In reality, this method of supply chain management is as complicated as any other.

CPAPDropShip.com knows this, and they know this is where they provide value to their clients. They have a fine-tuned order fulfillment process that has worked for over ten years.

As is sometimes the case with software projects that have lived long enough, the application no longer always reflects the business processes it represents.

CPAPDropShip.com hosted a two day Event Storming workshop to dig into their existing application and workflows. The outcome of the workshop was a detailed understanding of their core business processes.

The added visibility provided the tools to help their team make informed decisions on how to rebuild their application.

Discover ways their existing workflows could be improved

By exposing the actual business processes behind the application, CPAPDropShip.com was able to discover a few key places where the existing application did not align with them.

The Event Storming format helped facilitate these discoveries by being a fluid and ephemeral experience. As processes were discussed and found to not reflect reality it was easy to change them to better reflect reality.

The CPAPDropShip.com Subject Matter Experts (SME) quickly became comfortable with the format. Things were often added, changed, or removed entirely throughout the workshop.

Prioritize features based on their client types

CPAPDropShip.com works with several types of DMEs. To make an informed decision on which features should be done, and in which order, they needed to determine which features applied to which clients.

Event Storming exposed the features that the application needed to provide. It did so in a way that made it easy to see which were core features, which were value added features, and which features were only required for a specific subset of clients.

At the end of the workshop, CPAPDropShip.com walked away with four distinct types of clients. The first two types of clients used functionality required by all clients (core features and value added features). The last two each had their own unique subset of features.

This information helped CPAPDropShip.com prioritize the order in which features need to be done.

Estimate the work needed to rebuild their application

While they knew the rebuild needed to happen, CPAPDropShip.com wanted to more accurately estimate the work they would be undertaking in doing so. In order to do that, they needed to know what needed to be built.

The Event Storming workshop helped expose the required functionality in easy to understand terms. The format makes it easy for SMEs and developers to communicate with each other. It also makes it easier for developers to estimate the work needed to implement the required features.