Technical strategy (2-5 years)
This course covers technical strategy for a Rails application over a two to five year horizon, written as triggers instead of dates. The lessons explain why dated roadmaps fail and what a usable trigger needs: a measurement, a numeric threshold and a specific action. They list triggers for capacity, geography, structure, compliance and practice, then work out which limit binds first. Decisions are sorted by how expensive they are to undo. The course ends with a one-page strategy document and a capacity review exercise.
What you'll learn
- ✓Writing triggers with a measurement, a numeric threshold and a specific action
- ✓Finding which capacity limit binds first and ordering the scaling steps
- ✓Sorting decisions into one-way and two-way doors by the cost of reversal
- ✓Structuring a one-page strategy document in four sections
- ✓Recording declined options with the condition that would reverse them
- ✓Re-measuring ceilings when the configuration changes
Strategy is a list of triggers
A technical roadmap with dates on it is fiction by the second quarter. A roadmap with triggers on it survives contact with reality, and the difference is more than style.
Read the full lesson free →Curriculum
7 lessonsStrategy is a list of triggers
Why roadmaps with dates fail, and how a trigger with a measurement, threshold and action replaces them.
The triggers this series named
Lists triggers for capacity, geography, structure, compliance and practice, and shows that almost every trigger is a measurement.
The order things will bind
Compares request slots, memory, connections and disk to find which limit binds first and the scaling sequence.
One-way doors
Sorts decisions into two-way and one-way doors by cost of reversal, with Disk storage as the open one.
What a strategy document says
Describes the four sections of a one-page strategy document and why the list of declines matters most.
The strategy for this application
Writes out the strategy for this application: current work, five triggers, eight declines and one open decision.
Putting it together
Reviews the main ideas and sets a challenge to implement capacity_review, which finds the binding ceiling.