Architectural Katas
Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
New information after 10/28 Q&A Session:
- Here are the answers to the questions regarding the Hey Blue App that couldn't be answered during the Q&A event.
New information after 10/25 kickoff:
- Refer here for details on the problem and information about the Hey Blue App.
By registering for Architectural Katas, you get access to the three live online events and can vote for the winning presentation. Registration does not mean you’re also participating in the Architectural Katas challenge. If you’d like to take part, you must gather a team of three to five people and submit your team name to O’Reilly. Team registration will open October 25 following the first event. Your team must include at least one O’Reilly member in order to participate in the Architectural Katas challenge and attend the live events. The first 100 teams to sign up will be selected to participate.
About Architectural Katas: What could be better than practicing software architecture with your handpicked dream team of architects? Participants in Architectural Katas, moderated by Neal Ford and Mark Richards, work together in small groups of their choosing to solve a challenge an actual organization is facing. Everyone gets the chance to practice their craft with a real software architecture problem in a safe and social environment, and the finalists and winners earn well-deserved bragging rights (not to mention an intriguing line on their résumé). Plus a selected organization will have some of its gnarliest software architecture problems solved.
How it works: You put together a first-rate team of three to five people, ready to tackle an architecture challenge. We’ll share the architecture problem with you at the kickoff on October 25. Then your team will have to solve it, working in whatever way is best for you (video calls, group chat, shared docs, etc.). Teams will submit their solutions and reconvene at the semifinals on November 18 to find out which will move on to the finals on December 7. At the finals, the teams will submit video presentations and the audience will vote on the winner. Registration opens October 25 following the first event; the first 100 teams to sign up will be selected to participate.
Not ready to compete but want to be part of the action? Register for the event and join us to see how Architectural Katas works, cast your vote for the winning team, and learn how to successfully present architecture plans to stakeholders.
Series schedule:
Event 1: Kickoff - October 25, 2022 Meet the judges, hear all the details on how Architectural Katas works, learn more about the software architecture problem you’ll be solving, and get the chance to ask Neal and Mark any questions you may have.
New for Fall 2022! Discussion Forum with the Judges - October 28, 2022 Teams will be invited to a special one-hour discussion forum, where you’ll have the opportunity to ask the judges questions as you prepare your architectural solution.
Event 2: Semifinals and Architectural Presentation - November 18, 2022 Get a master class on presentation skills and learn how to successfully showcase software architecture plans to developers and stakeholders (and judges). You’ll also find out the top teams that will submit their video presentations for the final event.
Event 3: Finals - December 7, 2022 The top teams’ videos are shown, judges provide feedback, attendees vote for their favorite, and judges announce the winner.
New for Fall 2022! Discussion Forum with the Judges - December 9, 2022 Finalists will be invited to a special one-hour discussion forum, where you’ll be able to receive additional feedback from the judges about your team’s solution.
With today’s registration, you’ll be automatically signed up for Events 1, 2, and 3 in the Architectural Katas series. You’ll also get access to video recordings of all sessions as they become available, including any you may have missed. Teams and finalists will receive special invitations to join the discussion forums with the judges.
What you’ll learn and how you can apply it
- Identify and design architectural components
- Explore techniques to analyze and select the right architecture patterns
- Learn how to diagram and document an architectural solution
- Develop better communication skills to champion architecture decisions to developers and stakeholders
This live event is for you because...
- You're a senior-level developer who wants to make the move to architect.
- You're a practicing software architect who wants to hone your skills and learn new software architecture techniques and practices.
- You're responsible for creating a software architecture for your company, and you want to practice with a real-world challenge.
Prerequisites
- To participate in the Architectural Katas challenge, submit your team name to O’Reilly (Registration opens October 25 following the first event; only the first 100 applicants will be accepted. All registrants can attend Events 1, 2 and 3 and vote for the winning presentation.)
- Come with your questions
- Have a pen and paper handy to capture notes, insights, and inspiration
Recommended follow-up:
- Read Fundamentals of Software Architecture (book)
- Read Building Microservices, second edition (book)
- Read Building Evolutionary Architectures (book)
- Read Building Event-Driven Microservices (book)
- Take Architecture: The Hard Parts (live online training course with Mark Richards and Neal Ford)
- Take Microservice Fundamentals (live online training course with Sam Newman)
Schedule
The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.
Event 1: Kickoff - October 25, 2022 - (2 hours) - 7:00am PT | 10:00am ET | 2:00pm UTC/GMT
- Learn how Architectural Katas works
- Explore the problem you'll be solving
- Q&A
- This event will be followed by an invitation-only discussion forum for participating teams on October 28.
Event 2: Semifinals and Architectural Presentation - November 18, 2022 - (2 hours) - 7:00am PT | 10:00am ET | 3:00pm UTC/GMT
- Learn how to successfully present software architecture plans to developers and stakeholders
- Find out the top teams that will present in the final event
Event 3: Finals - December 7, 2022 - (2 hours) - 7:00am PT | 10:00am ET | 3:00pm UTC/GMT
- The top teams’ plans are presented
- Judges provide feedback
- Vote for your pick
- Winner announced
- This event will be followed by an invitation-only discussion forum for finalists on December 9.
Your Hosts
Mark Richards
Mark Richards is an experienced, hands-on software architect involved in the architecture, design, and implementation of microservices architectures and other distributed systems in a variety of technologies. He has been in the software industry since 1983 and has significant experience and expertise in application, integration, and enterprise architecture. Mark is the founder of DeveloperToArchitect.com, a free website devoted to helping developers in the journey to becoming a software architect. In addition to hands-on consulting, Mark has authored numerous technical books and videos, including his two latest books Fundamentals of Software Architecture and Software Architecture: The Hard Parts that he co-authored with Neal Ford. Mark has spoken at hundreds of conferences and user groups around the world on a variety of enterprise-related technical topics.
Neal Ford
Neal Ford is a director, software architect, and meme wrangler at Thoughtworks, a software company and a community of passionate, purpose-led individuals who think disruptively to deliver technology to address the toughest challenges, all while seeking to revolutionize the IT industry and create positive social change. He’s an internationally recognized expert on software development and delivery, especially in the intersection of Agile engineering techniques and software architecture. Neal’s authored several books, a number of magazine articles, and dozens of video presentations (including a video on improving technical presentations) and spoken at hundreds of developer conferences worldwide. His topics of interest include software architecture, continuous delivery, functional programming, and cutting-edge software innovations. Check out his website, Nealford.com
Emily Bache
Emily Bache is an independent consultant and technical coach who trains and coaches developers in effective agile practices such as refactoring and test-driven development. She’s authored two books and shares her expertise in online courses for O’Reilly and other learning platforms. A frequent conference speaker, she’s been invited to keynote at prestigious developer events including EuroPython, Craft, and ACCU. Emily founded the Samman Technical Coaching Society, a nonprofit organization that aims to support technical coaches around the world.
Clare Sudbery
Clare Sudbery is an independent technical coach with 23 years of software engineering experience. She specialises in TDD, refactoring, continuous integration and other Extreme Programming practices, also known as XP.
In 2009, Clare abandoned IT to retrain as a high school math teacher, but quickly returned to software, gaining new energy via XP. Clare teaches the Coding Black Females’ Return to Tech programme and co-ran Made Tech’s academy. She has a passion for helping under-represented groups to flourish in tech.
Clare hosted Season One of the acclaimed Making Tech Better podcast, and publishes notes and scribbles on her Medium blog called "A Woman in Technology", on her Clare Wiki website and on her blog called "In Simple Terms". She’s also a published novelist and has presented workshops and talks at several national and international events and conferences.
Clare hosted Season One of the acclaimed Making Tech Better podcast, and publishes notes and scribbles on Medium, on her at medium.com/a-woman-in-technology, clare-wiki.herokuapp.com and insimpleterms.blog. She’s also a published novelist and has presented workshops and talks at several national and international events and conferences.`
Jacqui Read
Jacqui Read is an internationally-recognised solution and enterprise architect, and author of Communication Patterns: A Guide for Developers and Architects. She teaches public and private workshops and speaks at international conferences on topics such as architecture practices, technical communication, and systems design. Jacqui specializes in untangling and extracting value from data and knowledge, helping businesses to determine direction in complex environments. Her professional interests include collaborative modeling, knowledge management, Domain-Driven Design, sociotechnical architecture, and modernizing enterprise architecture practices. Outside of work she enjoys gardening and strumming her ukulele while singing at the same time. Her website is https://jacquiread.com/.
David Bock
David Bock is the vice president of strategic development at Core4ce, where he helps turn new ideas into successfully executed business plans. Previously, David was the VP of tech and engineering mission support at Decisiv, where he was responsible for internal IT operations, site reliability engineering, quality assurance, security, customer service, and the company’s release and triage teams. David served as the editor of O'Reilly's OnJava.com website, has been published in several books and magazines, and frequently speaks on technology and team processes at software conferences.