

This bootcamp gives you a practical, end-to-end understanding of modern platform engineering and Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs). You will begin by exploring the fundamentals of platform ecosystems user needs, value streams, feedback loops, and organisational constraints and then progress to advanced topics such as platform pattern languages, DSRP systems thinking, flow optimisation, and designing safe, incremental change.
Through hands-on mapping sessions, you will build real artefacts such as Wardley Maps, OODA loops, 3-axis value-flow maps, and future-state capability designs. You will gain practical experience analysing your own organisation’s delivery landscape, identifying friction points, and shaping platform improvements that developers will actually adopt.
By the end of the bootcamp, you will have a clear understanding of how to design, evolve, and communicate a platform as a product. You will be able to articulate user needs, reduce cognitive load, shape feedback loops, and create a value-aligned roadmap that balances autonomy, governance, and reliability.
You will be well-prepared to contribute to or lead platform engineering initiatives in cloud-based or regulated enterprise environments, and to engage confidently in discussions about platform strategy, developer experience, and internal platform architecture.
| ✓ | We begin by establishing a clear picture of your current platform and delivery landscape |
| ✓ | Each participant will map their own developer users, value chains, capabilities, and dependencies |
| ✓ | Using tools like User Needs Mapping and Wardley Mapping, you will visualise how your platform fits into your wider organisational system |
| ✓ | Delivery flow depends on fast, reliable feedback, so you will learn to identify where loops break or slow down |
| ✓ | You will explore real-world friction points such as bottlenecks, hand-offs, cognitive load, and regulatory constraints |
| ✓ | We will apply OODA loops to model how your teams observe, orient, decide, and act when delivering software |
| ✓ | Understanding these loops provides the foundation for diagnosing platform friction and designing improvements |
| ✓ | You will build your first OODA Loop Canvas for your platform |
| ✓ | Platforms succeed when treated as products, not internal tooling, so we introduce the core principles of product thinking for IDPs |
| ✓ | You will identify your key developer journeys and examine how platform capabilities support or impede them |
| ✓ | We explore what “developer experience” means in practice and how to measure and improve it |
| ✓ | This sets the stage for designing capabilities that developers actually want to adopt |
| ✓ | You will learn the essential building blocks of Internal Developer Platforms |
| ✓ | Concepts include Golden Paths, self-service, guardrails, abstraction layers, composability, and observability |
| ✓ | We discuss why some abstractions empower developers while others restrict them |
| ✓ | This section provides a shared language for discussing platform design decisions across teams |
| ✓ | We examine Conway’s Law and how organisational boundaries shape the effectiveness of platform teams |
| ✓ | You will identify mismatches between team structure, platform design, and expected outcomes |
| ✓ | We explore common failure modes caused by unclear ownership, overlapping responsibilities, or tool sprawl |
| ✓ | Understanding these forces is key to aligning architecture, governance, and delivery practices |
| ✓ | You will bring together all the mapping tools introduced during the day |
| ✓ | Participants create a first-pass User Needs Map, a value-flow heat map, and an initial platform review |
| ✓ | This process highlights where the platform is working well and where change will have the highest impact |
| ✓ | We close Day 1 by identifying a small experiment that each participant could run immediately |
| ✓ | We start Day 2 by introducing DSRP: Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, and Perspectives |
| ✓ | You will revisit yesterday’s maps to uncover blind spots and hidden dependencies |
| ✓ | This provides a rigorous method for analysing complex socio-technical environments |
| ✓ | DSRP becomes a lens that enhances all further platform design work |
| ✓ | We combine User Needs Mapping, Value Stream Mapping, and DSRP into a unified diagnostic model |
| ✓ | You will map how user needs unfold over time across teams, capabilities, and tools |
| ✓ | This highlights delays, waste, rework, context-switching, cognitive load, and risk points |
| ✓ | The 3-axis map becomes the definitive view of your platform’s current state |
| ✓ | Using your diagnostic maps, we shift from analysis to design |
| ✓ | You will identify the smallest viable changes that unlock significant flow improvements |
| ✓ | We explore capability increments, migration paths, and safe-to-fail experiments |
| ✓ | This creates a realistic, evolvable, and technically grounded future-state platform design |
| ✓ | With the future design defined, participants prioritise improvements based on value, risk, and cost |
| ✓ | We explore sequencing strategies, dependency management, and incremental rollout |
| ✓ | You will build a value-aligned roadmap that is suitable for communication with stakeholders or leadership |
| ✓ | This section ensures your platform evolution is intentional rather than reactive |
| ✓ | A platform only delivers value when developers actually use it, so we focus on the Elephant & Rider model of behaviour change |
| ✓ | You will identify the emotional and rational adoption drivers specific to your organisation |
| ✓ | We discuss messaging, internal marketing, documentation styles, and team engagement patterns |
| ✓ | You will create an adoption and influence plan tailored to your context |
| ✓ | We close by exploring emerging trends: AI agents, automation loops, self-healing systems, and resilience patterns |
| ✓ | Each participant updates their platform review based on everything learned |
| ✓ | You will leave with a clear set of maps, artefacts, and experiments to continue after the workshop |
| ✓ | Final Q&A and reflection |
This bootcamp is ideal for platform engineers, SRE/DevOps practitioners, architects, and engineering leaders who want to deepen their platform engineering practice and bring structured, evidence-based improvements back to their teams.
This bootcamp is crafted for practitioners responsible for enabling developer velocity and reliability through internal platforms.
| ✓ | Bring your real-world context: your teams, your tools, your blockers. |
| ✓ | You should have access to (or knowledge of) your team’s software delivery process (CI/CD, service onboarding, developer feedback loops). |
| ✓ | A working understanding of cloud/containers/modern delivery is helpful—but not essential. |
| ✓ | Bring a laptop and access to a whiteboard or Miro-type board; you’ll build real artefacts live. |
| ✓ | Most importantly: come prepared to listen, map and experiment, not just consume slides. |
Learn more about MLCON:

Russ Miles is on a mission, as an Author, Listener, Speaker and Developer to help people thrive in one of the harshest, and potentially impactful, working environments: software system engineering. As an expert in Chaos Engineering, Resilience Engineering, Security and Software Architecture, Russ helps people navigate the complicated and complex to succeed through his books, mentorship, open source contributions, talks, courses and his daily work. Russ aims to help people that are responsible for building and running some of today’s most critical software-based systems to not just survive but thrive (with style).
6 months access to session recordings.
$100 discounts on MLcon New York tickets.
1 year unlimited access to devmio - the conference platform.
Sign Up today and get a taste of MLcon New York! Free for a limited time.
