Fred Brooks said, “How do we get great designers? Great designers design, of course.” and Ted Neward afterwards asked “So how are we supposed to get great architects, if they only get the chance to architect fewer than a half-dozen times in their career?” The kata is an ancient tradition, designed to give students the opportunity to practice not only basics but also being prepared for real situations. Architectural katas are like coding katas created by Dave Thomas, meant to practice architecting a software system.
How do we practice? The attendees will be split into small groups and given a “real world” business problem (the kata). The groups will discuss and discover the requirements and clarifies them with the “customer”. The vision/solution will be sketched and presented. Questions and feedback are provided from the other project teams.