Architectural Katas: Fall 2024
Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Put your skills to the test
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 September 19 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 September 19. 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 by 11:59pm ET September 30 and reconvene at the semifinals on October 10 to find out which will move on to the finals on October 24. At the finals, the teams will submit video presentations (due 11:59pm ET October 16) and the audience will vote on the winner. Registration opens September 19 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 - September 19, 2024
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.
Event 2: Semifinals and Architectural Presentation - October 10, 2024
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 - October 24, 2024
The top teams’ videos are shown, judges provide feedback, attendees vote for their favorite, and judges announce the winner.
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.
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 September 19 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 course with Mark Richards and Neal Ford)
- Take Microservices in 3 Weeks (live course with Sam Newman)
- Take Software Architecture by Example (live course with Neal Ford and Mark Richards)
Schedule
The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.
Event 1: Kickoff - September 19, 2024 - (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
Event 2: Semifinals and Architectural Presentation - October 10, 2024 - (2 hours) - 7:00am PT | 10:00am ET | 2:00pm 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 - October 24, 2024 - (2 hours) - 7:00am PT | 10:00am ET | 2:00pm UTC/GMT
- The top teams’ plans are presented
- Judges provide feedback
- Vote for your pick
- Winner announced
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
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.
Chelsea Troy
Chelsea Troy leads the machine learning operations team at Mozilla. She also teaches in the Master’s Program in Computer Science at the University of Chicago. Her online workshop, Fundamentals of Technical Debt, is available On Demand through the O’Reilly platform, and she also gives live courses about machine learning, large language models, and product thinking.
Sarah Wells
Sarah Wells is a technology leader, consultant, and conference speaker with a focus on microservices, engineering enablement, observability, and DevOps. She has over 20 years of experience as a developer, principal engineer, and tech director across product, platform, SRE, and DevOps teams. She spent over a decade working at the Financial Times as it transitioned from 12 releases a year to more than 20,000 and adopted the cloud, microservices, and DevOps.