Storyboarding and Other Fairy Tales: Once Upon a Bike Ride

Tom Asel Storyboarding:

Ever tried to explain a process with words alone and watched everyone nod while picturing something completely different? Storyboarding fixes that. Borrowed from filmmaking, it lets us sketch a user’s journey as a sequence of simple frames (screens, moments, decisions), so the whole team sees the same story before a single line of code is written.
In this hands-on session we’ll storyboard a scenario everyone knows: renting a bike. A customer finds a bike nearby, unlocks it, rides across town, gets a flat tire halfway, and finally tries to return it at a station that turns out to be full. Simple on the surface, but full of interesting questions: What does the customer see at each step? What does the system need to know? Where do the edge cases hide?
What we’ll do

• A short intro to storyboarding: what it is, where it fits alongside techniques like Domain Storytelling and Event Modeling, and why sketches beat specs early on
• Work in small groups to storyboard the bike rental journey, from “I need a bike” to “I’ve paid and I’m done”
• Add the unhappy paths: damaged bikes, failed payments, no free docks
• Compare storyboards across groups and discuss what each one revealed (and what it missed)

Who it’s for
Developers, product owners, designers, business analysts, and anyone who wants to get better at turning fuzzy requirements into a shared understanding. No drawing skills required. Stick figures and boxes are perfectly fine.
What to bring
Curiosity and a willingness to sketch. We’ll provide paper, markers and sticky notes. If you can, also bring a laptop or tablet with a web browser: we’ll use a shared Miro board alongside the paper, and our co-host Tom Asel will join remotely.

Tom is the founder of tangible concepts. He has been working as a developer, architect and trainer in software development for over 20 years. Agile architecture work is a focus of his work. He supports teams and organisations in aligning development processes, skills, technologies and architectures.

Agenda
18:00 Come in and Pizza
19:00 Modeling