At the end of the day, we asked each participant to summarize their key take aways from the workshop.
- Companies that want great designers should align its values with good design
- Surprised to see how many of the needed design skills are potentially not teachable. Can this be improved?
- I took away many good ideas on how to identify potential designers
- You can embed design growth in an agile process, such as postmortems and technical post-mortems + ADRs (Architecture Decision Records)
- There is reasonable agreement on the books that comprise the canon in software
design
- Some pointed out that the list is too long. Can it be distilled further?
- How do I rationalize and convince the group about design decisions?
- If I have coworkers who only care about getting raises or writing papers then I need to tell them how the design decision will help them accomplish their goals.
- Let them burn their hands on the stove.
- Create opportunities for upcoming designers to have diverse experiences.
- both positive and negative reinforcement are needed for growth.
- The paradigm of architecture as risk reduction hasn't take root yet and there is work to be done.
- I have a list of concrete ways to grow great designers and exchange experiences
- Surprised that there is no repository of architecture. Code + text
- Great design is a creative art, not an engineering exercise.
- You can grow as a designer through the canon of design knowledge
- Several designers in our group expressed tha their work as designers has
become overwhelming. Current processes and values in companies are contributing
factors.
- Are we approaching a design crisis?
- What is the dynamic here? It might start with low level design abilities, putting more load on the senior designers.
