Project Lionheart: The Story So Far…

The team is at a crossroad. Some team members feel we should use a service-oriented approach using microservices. Others feel we should play it safe and stick with a tried-and-true multi-tier pattern. You need to resolve the conflict and create buy-in for the design decision. Since either pattern would probably work out fine, you host a design studio to help the team decide.

Your goal for the workshop is to explore the nuances of each pattern and flush risks into the open for the team to discuss. You start the workshop with small-group exercises to generate ideas. The microservices and multi-tiered patterns come up, but a few other interesting and unexpected ideas are raised as well.

After the initial round of presentations and critiques, you have us create group posters. Unexpectedly, as the team works through the different ideas, microservices fall completely out of favor! By the end of the two-hour workshop, the team explored a half dozen design options and arrive at a great solution. More importantly, everyone had a say in the final decision and there seems to be a genuine sense of shared ownership among the team that didn’t exist before the workshop.