We often assume that once we get everyone into a room for a collaborative modeling session, the hardest part is over. But what happens when you discover—just 48 hours before kickoff—that the person signing the checks has a fundamentally different definition of success than the product team?. In this episode, Beija Nigl joins Kenny and Andrew to share a candid story about a legacy migration project where the goalposts moved before the game even started.

Beija recounts her experience facilitating a workshop intended to handle a 20-year-old legacy system where Java 8 support was running out. While the Product Owner wanted to completely "rethink" the broken processes, the sponsor introduced the session as a documentation exercise to rebuild the system's edge cases "as-is". This critical misalignment led to a room full of business experts getting bogged down in technical implementation details—debating status codes like "Status 800" and "nightly runs"—rather than solving the underlying business problems.

This conversation goes deep into the socio-technical challenges of our work. We explore the emotional attachment stakeholders have to legacy complexity and how facilitators can navigate power dynamics when the "ground truth" is uncomfortable. Beija also reveals how this challenging experience became the catalyst for creating the "Como Prep Canvas," a tool designed to surface these conflicting motivations before the sticky notes ever hit the wall.

Key Discussion Points

1. [00:01] The Legacy Trap: Setting the stage for a workshop to replace a 20-year-old system facing end-of-life support.
2. [03:00] The "Rebuild" vs. "Rethink" Conflict: Discovering at the 11th hour that the sponsor wants to document edge cases while the team wants to fix the process.
3. [05:00] When Technical Debt Hijacks the Conversation: How the workshop drifted into mapping status codes (e.g., Status 800 vs. 305) instead of business value.
4. [08:00] Emotional Safety in Modeling: Understanding why experts cling to complex legacy numbers as a form of job security and identity.
5. [13:00] The Facilitator’s Dilemma: Navigating the tension of facilitation when you cannot refer to an aligned goal because one doesn't exist.
6. [16:00] Delivering the "Ground Truth": The consultant's responsibility to present uncomfortable findings to leadership to drive organizational alignment.
7. [19:00] Aligning on Intent: How to prepare mentally to ensure you are solving the right problem for the business success.

Resources Mentioned

1. Como Prep Canvas: The tool Beija developed with the DDD-crew to better align stakeholder expectations prior to collaborative modeling. https://github.com/ddd-crew/como-prep-canvas

Welcome back to another series of stories for

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facilitating architecture and design.

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With me today is Beja Neil my plu.

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and from the organizers or the showrunners

or co conspiracies as Andrea calls it.

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Andrews with me.

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Hello Andrew.

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And, today we're gonna hear about

a story you brought in Beja.

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Beija Nigl: Yes.

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Kenny Schwegler: what

you, what you brought.

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Beija Nigl: So, yeah, I brought a

story, from a collaborative modeling

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workshop that I was facilitating.

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It was already quite some time ago,

and it was basically the starting

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point for, uh, the common prep canvas

because I figured, that things were not

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going the way that I wanted them to go.

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story is as follows.

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So it was also a legacy software.

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It was built throughout 20 years.

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It was in production for quite some time.

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And they had this thing that it was

running on Java eight and the support

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for Java eight was running out.

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So they had to somehow figure

out what to do with that.

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we already had a team working with

them who was actually, using the

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data that came out of this legacy

software and they struggled a lot.

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So that's where, we got

into this whole project and.

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I was mainly talking to one of the

product owners and he was like, Hey,

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we need to rebuild the whole thing.

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All the processes are crap.

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they're way too technical.

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Many things are not

going, it's not working.

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We when our team cannot work with the

data, that data that we get out of it.

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that was the initial, like the, the

start of this, okay, we need to do

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a collaborative modeling workshop.

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We need to understand

this legacy software.

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We also need to rebuild it

because of this, like J eight.

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And that's how it all started.

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And then we planned this workshop.

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We thought, okay, hey, let's do this.

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Let's start, bringing all the stakeholders

together, all the different departments

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that's understand all the processes and.

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What I usually do is that I have setting

the stage sessions with everyone involved.

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So I take all the stakeholder groups.

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I don't usually don't do one-on-ones

because the groups are bigger.

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So I take the groups that I expect

to have similar doubts, motivations,

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thoughts on this, and then do setting

the stage like half an hour and try to

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talk them through, okay, hey, this is

what's going to happen in this workshop.

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So we planned for an event storming

workshop, and then the second day, let's

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see what comes out of the first day.

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And then we.

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Like it based on, on the outcomes.

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So I explain them what is going to

happen, this is what we do, so that

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they are not like overwhelmed, that they

understand the motivation I also had

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this with the manager of this product

owner that we had main contact because

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I thought, Hey, we do it with everyone,

so we also do it with that person.

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And I wanted him to do like the

introduction because he was like

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the owner of the whole process.

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And my assumption was that the product

owner that I was most in contact with and

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his manager, that there were perfectly

aligned because that's the impression that

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I got in previous meetings, figured it

was two days prior the workshop figured.

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Well, he wanted to have this workshop

to get a documentation of all edge

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cases so that we can rebuild basically

the same thing, the product owner

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that I was talking to was like.

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Hey, let's rethink the whole thing

because it's not, it's not working.

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It's pretty buggy.

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It's, there are edge cases that are

coming from the business, but there

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are a lot of edge cases that are not

business driven, but just because the

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implementation is not in a way that it

should have been or could have been.

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And as it was just two days prior to

the workshop, I was like, okay, let's.

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go with this.

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We'll figure out, let's take the

workshop also too, to show this manager.

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Hey, where are we actually?

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And the problem is, or that's

what I face and where I thought

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afterwards, okay, I could, I could

have done this maybe differently.

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And that's also why I would be also

interested in maybe your perspectives

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or what we can dive into deeper

We, we started this workshop.

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I had this manager doing the introduction,

and as he had this perspective,

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let's write the documentation.

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The introduction was shaped

this way and this set the stage

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for the whole workshop, I.

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the end, the workshop still was a

success because it laid the foundation

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to get, like get the conversation going

afterwards to actually rethink this.

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But the workshop itself was rather

exhausting because people were

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more aiming towards building a

documentation of the processes as is.

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Whereas rethinking.

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A new process because we

had a lot of main events.

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It was like, oh, status 800 is

this status, 300 is this, and

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if I have status 305, then there

is a nightly run, and after the

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nightly run, it's another status.

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And they were highly

relying on this nightly run.

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And all of these, these kind of things.

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So it was very, very technical and it

was only business people in the room.

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so it was very hard to get them

to this thinking, okay, hey, what

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do we actually wanna achieve?

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And so the workshop was really great

still because it was important to lay the

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foundation to get everything going, but

it was not what we expected, like not what

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we wanted as a facilitator or the product

owner to re rethink the whole process.

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But it was also not writing a

documentation because event storming is

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not the way to write a documentation.

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So.

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That's like the story that I would like

to tell and what I thought took out of

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it is that it's important to really get

the people on board before, especially

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if you have people that are in a

position of power, whether it's because

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of their manager or because of their,

like, long in the, in the team or have

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a lot like or are technical experts.

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and to really get them on board

before on what is your intention?

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And not to rely too much if

you have this goal to actually

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get somewhere in this workshop.

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And if the workshop is not just,

let's share and let's put everything

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through the room, which in the end

was what happened, but that was not

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the initial goal of the workshop.

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So that's the story I would like to share.

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and to, to wrap it up.

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As I said in the beginning, this was

the start for me, for the Como prep

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canvas because I, I felt like, okay,

if I would've had some more guidance

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before to be like, what questions

help me if I'm a facilitator or

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if I'm facilitating architect, it

doesn't have to be a big workshop.

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it would've helped me to, to have

more of a feeling like, okay, this is

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something that I I, or to, to my gut

feeling explicit and by this tangible.

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Andrew Harmel-Law: I think

the, uh, I've definitely.

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Been in that kind of situation,

like lots of different bits

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of that situation actually.

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like things that we're kind of not talking

about but I think is a bit like the, the

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one where people are, they're not sure if

they're mapping out the old system or if

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they're imagining the future and stuff.

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And I think you're right, things

like that, get the agenda for that

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does get kind of set, maybe not

even explicitly sometimes right.

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By the people who kick off these things.

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'cause I think it's smart to get.

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The stakeholders to kick it off.

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And then, and then you wonder later

on why the, why the workshop is going

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in one direction or not the other.

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The thing that, that, that I took, so I

once Alberta brand do an event storming

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thing for stupid numbers of human beings.

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and it was terrifying 'cause

it was just him on his own.

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But he kept emphasizing that we

were playing, which was a really

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interesting kind of thing to me.

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He's like, let's play event storming

and, That was really interesting.

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'cause sometimes it allowed, it allowed

him to be more kind of in the space in

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between the two things where he could

be like, right, we are documenting all

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of this old stuff and what happens.

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But we could, he'd be like, what happens?

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What happens if the system falls

over and then we have to fall back

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to like the old process and things.

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It was really interesting to, like

you say, being aware of that stuff

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is super, is super important.

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Beija Nigl: Yeah, maybe it would also

help, like if we talked about in the,

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in the series of Michaels, about people

being maybe afraid of something or

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having like emotional attachments.

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And as there was also legacy software

people very attached, people knew their

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way around with all the status codes.

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So if you go move away of all these status

codes and all this like nightly runs.

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They would have this feeling,

okay, I dunno my work anymore,

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I dunno what I need to do.

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So taking also this emotional and taking

them with in the workshop to be like,

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Hey, not about TA changing everything.

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You can still do your job.

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We take you along.

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Andrew Harmel-Law: Yeah.

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Beija Nigl: we don't want to

make everything new and then

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you don't know your work.

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Andrew Harmel-Law: Especially

perhaps these days, right?

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Where people are like, this is

maybe the one of the few things.

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Everything sounds like it's

gonna change and be all modern

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and robots are gonna take over.

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And I'm like, this is the thing.

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I know the thing.

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Yeah.

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That's kind of, again, it goes back

to the empathy thing again, right.

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As well.

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Michael Plöd: Absolutely,

and I think what.

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Sometimes really helps to totally

change the context in, in these things.

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Um, so, uh, when, especially in legacy

situations like the one that you

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described, beja, I very often say we are

not talking about this legacy system here.

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This is not in the scope.

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Let's pull this out of the scope.

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Let's focus on the problem

that this system solves.

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And this can be very tough.

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For many people to, oh, about the

status quo that you mentioned.

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Kenny Schwegler: Or the

file that's been updated.

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Yeah, I need to file.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Andrew Harmel-Law: I have totally

built systems where, and like you say,

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Baya, they are, they totally know and

they'll have a whole conversation about

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message three versus message seven.

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And what happened?

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Oh, well that's message eight.

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Did you ever see a message eight?

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And meanwhile, as a

facilitator, you're like.

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is no domains anymore suddenly,

and they're just talking about

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17 different numbers of messages,

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Beija Nigl: But that was.

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Something that we also had in a different

workshop where they wanted to go to

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more, like they had numbers, um, for

their, entries in their shop and all

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numbers, every digit in this number had

meaning and they wanted to step away

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from this to be like, Hey, if we onboard

new people, then they would not know.

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And the numbers, let's go to more

something that is more speaking.

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The old stuff was like,

but I know the numbers.

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Like I'm super fast with the

numbers because I know every

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digit, I just see the number and

I know what we're talking about.

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I found it very hard to be like,

okay, where do we wanna go?

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Do we wanna make onboarding easy for new

people so they immediately understand

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and don't need much of explanation?

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Or do you wanna be fast with

all the numbers and the stuff

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that's already doing it?

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And this trade over is something that

also, especially as a facilitator

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as you don't know, because like.

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Is it just me that wants to

understand the codes is it like

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for everyone else is clear?

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Should I just because I don't

understand it, then facilitate it?

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Facilitate it in the way that

we should go away from it, just

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because I don't understand it.

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Kenny Schwegler: So one big conflict that

your story reminds me of, and I'm curious

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how you cope with it sort of like you

have knowledge of architecture and design,

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same as everyone in this call, right?

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And then you want to facilitate and,

on one hand in that facilitation.

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You want to sort of like

be neutral in a way, right?

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You want the group to come up with that,

but then the group wants to go left.

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Sort of like documenting it, I

think what I hear from your story,

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but you think, no, wait, we come

on, let's, let's focus on this.

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So there's a conflict of interest

there in a way, I guess, how did you.

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Feel about that during the session.

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How do you, how did you handle

that, during the session

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or even before the session?

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Because you don't want to

overstep your boundaries in a way.

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You don't want to show your color,

Like, no, we shouldn't do that.

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But I think that might

not want to do that.

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Not sure.

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Maybe looking back, you

should have done that.

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how did you go, how did you

go with that and how did you

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feel during that facilitation?

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Beija Nigl: I think for that

specific workshop I was sharing,

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it was very difficult because

the goal was not clear enough.

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So I, or let's say me and the

product owner that had the prior

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discussions one goal was clear, but

the manager who was like owning it.

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Who was the sponsor had a different goal.

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if I have an aligned goal, what I

can do is I can always refer to that

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aligned goal and zoom out again.

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Be like, Hey, we wanna achieve this goal.

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This is what I would

suggest to get to this goal.

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This is what the room wants.

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Let's, where do we wanna go?

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Which road do we wanna go down?

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In the end, it's not up to me.

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I want you to succeed.

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So to say as a facilitator, but

if I don't have this aligned

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goal, I cannot refer to it.

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And that was my problem in this workshop,

that I had this goal of the, the sponsor

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and had our goal and there was a mismatch.

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So it was hard.

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and also at some point this manager

was not in room anymore because he had

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important meetings to to do, which.

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Was still, which made it even more

difficult politically to be like,

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Hey, which goal to I refer to?

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And also made it hard to realign on

this goal during the session this

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could also have been an option, if

you have the people in the room to

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say, okay, hey, I feel like, hey,

we are not aligned on the goal.

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Let's quickly do a session, check in

on the goal, half an hour, 20 minutes,

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and then you can move on that point.

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Kenny Schwegler: think that's

an even harder bit, right?

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Where you have a sponsor that has goal a.

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Leaves the room and then the group

goes to another goal because they got

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an insight, which happens well, which

hopefully happens because that's great.

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You get an insight like, oh, oh, this

isn't, no, we have never seen it this way.

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Andrew Harmel-Law: Yep.

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Kenny Schwegler: How did you,

uh, how would you go about that?

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Knowing that, the manager

really probably has some.

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Own agenda and then the group says,

no, we need to go, we need to go that

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way because we feel that's important.

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Now you get the conflicting

goals, between the and the group.

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Beija Nigl: I mean, in that case, as

the manager was out of the room for

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basically most of the afternoon, he

just came back for the closing round.

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And in this closing round there was

no space to, ask many questions.

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So he was just more as an observer.

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And then afterwards we had

a session with him, one.

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Not a one-on-one because it was two

facilitators and him where we basically

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did a wrap up of the whole workshop.

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We explained of, Hey, this is what

we, that was the initial goal.

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This is what we observed.

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This is the outcome that had the workshop.

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This was, maybe this is in conflict

to the outcome that we wanted to have,

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this is why it's super helpful still,

because we had a lot of insights.

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They wanted to have all educators.

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But one insight that we got, for

example, from this workshop was there

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are business edge cases, but they're

also edge cases because of data quality,

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but they're also edge cases because of

the implementation is it's currently.

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'cause people said, don't have

to check this and that, the eight

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field again, because I don't know

if it's checked before, which

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is something that you can solve.

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There's a lot of these edge cases

that could be solved technically

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that are not business edge cases.

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This was, for example, an

insight that was very important.

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And as he was not there during this

part of the workshop, we shared this

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afterwards with him and be like, Hey,

this is when we took the McKinsey, slides,

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so to say and be like, Hey, this is the

outcome and this is our recommendation,

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what we would do in your case.

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and that's.

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When the point where I'm often very

happy that I'm a consultant because

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I really can put the finger to it

and I can the truth that is maybe

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not the one people want to hear.

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because I see this as my, my task.

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This is what I get paid for.

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and so this is how we dealt

with this in that situation.

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Andrew Harmel-Law: Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Michael Plöd: What's the.

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Andrew Harmel-Law: Okay.

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Beija Nigl: he was great.

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Like he was very grateful, thankful

for it, and was like, okay, I

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need, because that's also what we

told him, like, Hey, now it's up

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on you because you're the manager.

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You need to of what you wanna do with

it, and you need to decide basically.

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Which road do we wanna go?

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This is our recommendation.

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We help you with the next steps,

but you need to, to digest this, you

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need to think, hey, is that the way?

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Because we need your buy-in.

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he basically just took it with

him, thought about it, and

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then came back to us later.

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Andrew Harmel-Law: It's Because like

it's, you are telling him the ground

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truth of his organization, whether or

not, I'm assuming it's a man, right?

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like this might be what you want, but

there are these other things which when

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you leave the room, everyone else talks

about this is like, like ground truth is

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this new word I've discovered last week.

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And then.

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it is, right.

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They're all relevant factors, which

might be getting in the way or, or

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smooth the, the path of this, right?

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If he wants to get buy-in for something,

then he might be able to take all

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these and yeah, like you said, beha,

the reflection of this, all of that to

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the person is kind of useful, right?

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Michael Plöd: Do you prepare?

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For, these settings.

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So of course there's the risk

of rejection, so how dare you?

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Yeah.

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I mean, of course as an

external consultant, it's.

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Sometimes easier on the one hand, but

on the other hand, you of course run the

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risk of losing a customer, a consulting

gig if you make someone really angry.

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Uh, do do you prepare for these

situations or do you just go in there

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and say, okay, I go with the flow.

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Beija Nigl: I try to prepare the

storyline because, what is it,

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what that I wanna bring across?

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And what helps a lot is, me in

my preparation, but also that

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these conversations actually

work most of the time to think,

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okay, what is our mutual goal?

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What do we both want to achieve?

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And it's not that I want to achieve

something that is harming the other

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person, but I want their best.

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I want the company's success.

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Michael Plöd: Yeah.

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Beija Nigl: if I make this clear to

myself and then we'll make this clear

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in the conversation, this lays like the

groundwork to actually be heard still.

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It might be that people need time to

digest, a different opinion or, something

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that they, that might be uncomfortable,

that for example, in that case,

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this manager might need to have some

uncomfortable conversations afterwards.

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To get buy-in of other

people that he needs.

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But if I have this clear framing for

myself, okay, hey, I want their success.

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For me, it worked quite

well to bring this across.

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And that made it also easier to be like

to, to put the finger in the, in the

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wound to be like, Hey, I know this hurts,

but if we wanna get somewhere, have

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to, unfortunately we have to do this.

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And I totally understand it.

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That might not be the way

that you want it to be.

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feel that.

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But sometimes we have to

deal with what is there.

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We cannot wish for whatever, ever.

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And we have to work with that.

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And I have the feeling that

also helps people to be seen.

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had it in, in your story, Michael,

to be like, okay, people want to

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be seen, want to be respected, and

also their fears or their work.

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if you everything on the

table, this, this helps.

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I have the feeling and not

sometimes also making it explicit

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to be like, Hey, it's okay if you.

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If this might take time, it's okay

if that might feel frustrating.

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It's okay if that's

not what we want it to.

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but also stating, hey, can get there, be

like optimistic hey, we can achieve this.

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It might be a long way, but I see light

in the end of the tunnel, so to say.

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Michael Plöd: Okay.

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Beija Nigl: Yeah, basically how I prepare.

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If you wanna call

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Michael Plöd: Thank you.

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Beija Nigl: it's more mental.

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Michael Plöd: It's preparation.

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Kenny Schwegler: It is preparation.

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So yeah, I guess that the prepar.

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Is important.

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Did you ever experience, well besides

this one where you, got into a,

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situation that you couldn't prepare or

there weren't time to prepare and you

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knew, okay, this needs preparation.

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what do you do in that case?

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Did you ever experience that or.

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Beija Nigl: if I'm in a situation where

I feel like, I should have prepared,

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but now I don't have the time anymore.

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Kenny Schwegler: Or

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not the facilitator and that

facilitator didn't prepare and you are

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in that session and the facilitator

actually didn't do the goal.

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Right.

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Have you ever been in that

situation and what do you do then?

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I.

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Beija Nigl: It depends.

400

I've been in similar situations, not

exactly what you described, but what

401

helps me if like for example, if I

have a facilitator that I feel like,

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okay, they didn't prepare well, it

depends on what type of person they are.

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if they wanna run their show.

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Let's put it that way, I don't have

that much space to change something.

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What I can still do is I can ask questions

and I can propose things, Hey, does,

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would it maybe make sense to do this?

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Would it maybe make sense to do this or.

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Also be like, Hey, I don't get it.

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Sometimes it's also this like, be okay,

hey, maybe I'm, maybe I'm the only

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one, but I didn't understand this.

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Or can we please realign on the goal?

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Because then I feel like I didn't get it.

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And if you go with this,

it does not always work.

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It depends on the facilitator,

it depends on the people.

415

but this helps to make them

maybe realign, readjust.

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And even if you.

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understood it.

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Sometimes you have the feeling other

people didn't understand it and then

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stepping up for them and be like, Hey, can

we just quickly check on an in on this?

420

Kenny Schwegler: more from your

own need at that point where

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you say, that's what I try to do

right When So saying I have this.

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Need?

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I'm not sure.

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I don't understand the goal yet.

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Can we make that more clear instead of

I, yeah, we need to set the goal, which

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is, yeah, that's a good heuristic, right?

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So what happens when you, when you

see this happening in a session and

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you're not the facilitator, you don't

want to overstep your boundaries or

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hurt the facilitator in that way.

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So I think talking from your own

needs is a very good heuristic.

431

Beija Nigl: And you also don't know,

sometimes it is also very unconscious.

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Maybe the facilitator was just

too busy with other things.

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Maybe the room was not working.

434

Maybe they were, in a hustle

on the way to the workshop.

435

And that's why they had, maybe they

had everything prepared, but they just

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didn't think of it in that moment.

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And maybe they're grateful for you

asking this question, or at least I am.

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If I'm forgetting things and people

raise it and be like, oh, cool, thanks.

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Kenny Schwegler: We always have that.

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So yeah, it's going back to

the previous episode, right?

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Where you say, well, doesn't matter.

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That person, that facilitator

isn't, making mistakes or is a

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bad facilitator, they just might.

444

Made a small mistake that everyone

can make because we've all been in a

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situation thinking, oh, so yeah, that

really helps if there's a person in

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the room saying, Hey, I have this need.

447

Yeah.

448

All right.

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for your story and the insights and,

this was another episode and, like,

450

subscribe, We have a Discord channel.

451

you're both there, right?

452

So you can talk about this more.

453

if you have any more questions, you

can always join our growing community.

454

hope you enjoyed this show

and, see you next time.

455

Bye-bye.

456

Beija Nigl: Thank you.