Mastering Platform Engineering – From Design to Value (2 Day Bootcamp)

Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine, San Diego or Online
June 1 - 5, 2026 (Thursday–Friday) | 9:00–17:00

EARLY BIRD SPECIAL ENDS IN:

Understand modern platform ecosystems and
build real-world mapping artefacts

Diagnose delivery friction
and design developer-centric platform improvements

Master platform-as-product thinking
and create value-aligned platform roadmaps

5 Reasons to join
the Bootcamp

Enhance your productivity
While you concentrate on what you do best - writing code - the infrastructure and the tool box is taken care of
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Less stress through streamlining
Automated tasks and simplified processes significantly reduce cognitive loads
Scale your organisation with ease
Employ a framework that grows alongside your organisation’s needs
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Meet new demands
Rapid technological changes require new solutions. Adopt a robust foundation to weather the coming demands
Threat limitation
Reduce your area of attack with pipelines fitted with security and compliance measures
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Bootcamp Overview

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.

Agenda Day 1

1. Understanding Your Platform Ecosystem

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

2. Mapping Flow and Feedback Loops

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

3. Introducing Platform-as-Product Thinking

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

4. IDP Pattern Language: Foundations of Good Platform Design

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

5. Organisational Forces and Architecture

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

6. Synthesis Mapping Session

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

Agenda Day 2

1. Applying DSRP Systems Thinking

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

2. Constructing a 3-Axis Flow Map

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

3. Designing Your Future Platform 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

4. Building an Impact Roadmap

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

5. Adoption & Influence Strategies

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

6. Platform Futures & Final Synthesis

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

Audience & Requirements

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.

To get the most from the bootcamp:

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.

STAY TUNED &

Learn more about MLCON:

Meet The Mastermind

Russell Miles

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). 

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