Ancient History#

In the very early days of Java, Sun had a wonderful course/workshop for software architects. I have long-since forgotten the original course title or SunEd Catalogue number, and Sun have long since dropped the course from their education catalogue, and replaced it with an architecture course that, whilst it is quite good in its own right, cannot hold a candle to the original. The memories of times I ran that workshop have remained a fond memory, and it has long been a dream to re-create the immense, intense value that came from that workshop.

The course consisted, essentially, of a structured round-table discussion... a meeting of highly skilled and experienced peers... software architects and designers with (usually) an average of 10 to 15 years of experience.

The first time I ran the course was one of the most terrifying, most exhilarating experiences of my life! Confronted with a room filled with very senior software practitioners, every person extremely skilful at software design-craft, and highly experienced with a dizzying range of enterprise technologies, tools and methodologies. How on Earth could I presume to teach them anything?

The answer, of course, was to get my own pathetic ego out of the way, and simply let them teach each other (and me).

By simply providing a structured set of topics interesting to software architects, and playing a facilitation role, rather than trying to teach, we all had the most marvellous workshop. We could survey technologies and techniques very broadly, whilst at the same time having a pretty good chance that one or two participants had actually implemented each one in a live enterprise setting, and was willing to share their experiences. The good and the bad.

This is experts pooling their expertise, not vendors selling a rose-tinted Happy Meal For Two. The result? Extreme value for all participants.

What I could add to the value-engine was a breadth of experience to match the depth brought by participants. I learned, then, that a consultant's value often lies in having exposure and experience with a much wider range of tools, techniques, methodologies, structures and technologies than most enterprise-bound software designers and architects. This yin-yang meld of wide and deep experience meant that we could explore, trade off and compare a wide range of topics, without getting too bogged down in the details, but without the discussion becoming vapid for lack of detail.

The Advanced Architects' Workshop attempts to replicate those experiences.#

One of the key values of the workshop comes through having participants from as wide a range of technical backgrounds as possible. Consequently we will accept a maximum of 2 participants from any single company on any given workshop.

Are you up to it?

Please contact us if you don't see a suitable date for this course in our schedule.