Architectural Katas: Spring 2022

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, 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.

Series schedule:

Event 1: Kickoff - May 24, 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 any questions you may have.

Event 2: Semifinals and Architectural Presentation - June 16, 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 - June 30, 2022 The top teams’ videos are shown, judges provide feedback, attendees vote for their favorite, and judges announce the winner.

• 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

• 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.

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)