Masterclass

Software Design Accelerator: Design a System in a Day

About

In a world where 75%+ software projects still fail, what is going wrong? Failure means the system doesn’t meet customer and/or business needs. This workshop allows you to super-charge your design learning, combining technical skills, team-working, conflict resolution, and complexity-management techniques.

 

Let’s break this cycle of failure; take these skills and apply them straight away to your work. The Software Design Accelerator is about increasing your velocity towards successful outcomes.

 

This workshop is based around a problem statement, where you will exercise a variety of software design techniques within a supportive environment. We’ll take a step back to think about designing the system that builds the system, and have fun creating a design together.

 

Join this workshop to:

  • Get your teeth into an interesting problem with practical activities
  • Explore and share techniques for breaking down the problem and designing a solution
  • Practise diagramming and presenting your designs
  • Learn from others in a safe and supportive atmosphere

 

This is a fun and mostly practical workshop for anyone working in software development.

Course contents

  • Getting started
  • What is design?
  • Exploring the context
  • Design activities
  • Going deeper
  • Working together
  • Final huddle

Target audience and prerequisites

Developers, team leads, staff plus, architects, tech leads, product owners, project managers, business analysts, people working in software development.

Some experience of working on the design or implementation of a system is good to have, but students and those at the beginning of their software careers are most welcome. If you arrive at the course with additional experience it will allow you to take away broader insights.

Learning Outcomes

  • experiment with different ways to design a system, and understand that there is no one way to design a system
  • recognise that there are techniques and methods that are useful for designing a software system, e.g. design attributes, the ACED model, EventStorming, etc
  • understand that clear communication and knowledge management is key to a system’s implementation, and improve clarity in your own communication
  • share experiences and techniques and learn from others
  • have fun creating together in a mostly practical workshop

FAQ

Q: Do I need to be a programmer to attend your workshop?

A: No. You do not need to code or be technical to attend this workshop. We will be mostly exploring the activities that happen before technical decisions.

 

Q: Do I need to bring a laptop or install anything before the workshop?

A: No. You may bring a laptop if you want, but we will be doing activities using paper, pens, etc. You may want to bring a notebook for your own notes.

 

Q: Will I receive the slides and teaching materials used during the course?

A: Yes, all materials will be made available to you.

What participants say about Jacqui’s workshops

“This training session helped me realize it was time to update my architectural modelling approaches. Jacqui’s ability to address all questions, even those slightly off-topic, made the learning experience particularly valuable.”

– Workshop participant

 

“Jacqui’s teaching offers a transformative perspective on architecture, skillfully integrating critical concepts with actionable tools.”

– Workshop participant

 

“I learned a lot about communicating architecture effectively. Your teaching style, moving from theory to practice with real examples, was very engaging and helpful in understanding subtle nuances.”

– Workshop participant

15 October 2025