Study plan

An eight-week plan that mixes reading with hands-on work, since fitness functions are best learned by writing them. Adjust the pace to suit you; each block stands on its own.

Weeks 1–2: Foundations

• Read Building Evolutionary Architectures (2nd ed.), chapters on fitness functions and incremental change.
• Write a short summary of each chapter in your own words.
• List the architectural characteristics that matter for a typical AWS platform and rank them (see identifying and ranking characteristics).

Weeks 3–4: Fitness functions hands-on

• Build a small CDK or Terraform project with a CI pipeline (GitHub Actions).
• Add cdk-nag or Checkov to the pipeline, and write one custom rule.
• Write a CloudFormation Guard rule for tagging and encryption.
• Deploy an AWS Config rule that detects the same thing at runtime.

Weeks 5–6: Coupling and data

• Read the quanta and coupling chapters (and the matching parts of The Hard Parts).
• Map a system you know into architecture quanta. Where is coupling inappropriate?
• Practise expand/contract on a schema change with a migration tool.

Weeks 7–8: The platform and the role

• Sketch an AWS organisation (OUs, accounts, SCPs) and write ADRs for the main decisions. Compare them with the worked ADRs.
• Run an FIS experiment with a clear pass condition.
• Read Team Topologies and Facilitating Software Architecture.
• Prepare your own version of the questions to ask a team.

Ongoing

• Test yourself with the flash cards and scenario quiz.
• Read each new Thoughtworks Technology Radar and note what’s relevant to evolutionary architecture.