Backfill Architecture Decision Records for a Mainframe Modernization Program
Overview
What this challenge is about.
Mine chat logs and meeting notes to write twelve ADRs, design a review workflow, and build a training kit. Earn a verifiable certificate.
The scenario
The carrier writes life and health policies and runs core policy administration on a mainframe alongside a .NET monolith, both now being decomposed into microservices on Kubernetes over three years. In regulated insurance, undocumented architecture choices become audit and continuity risks, not just engineering annoyances.
The Brief
What you'll do, and what you'll demonstrate.
Architecture decisions on a three-year modernization program are being made in chat and meetings but never recorded, so settled choices get re-litigated and the rationale is lost.
Earning criteria — what you'll demonstrate
- Reconstruct architecture decisions from informal records (chat and meeting notes) into structured, defensible ADRs
- Apply the Nygard ADR template consistently across a set of related decisions
- Design a lightweight, pull-request-based review workflow with clear status lifecycle and ownership
- Build and facilitate training that transfers a documentation practice to a team
- Communicate the value of an engineering practice to a senior sponsor in business terms
Program Fit
Where this fits in your program.
Sharpens the same skills your degree expects you to demonstrate.
Aligned coursework coming soon.
Skills
Skills you'll demonstrate.
Each one shows up on your verified credential.
- Architecture Decision Records
Apply architecture decision records to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Technical Debt
Apply technical debt to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Stakeholder Communication
Apply stakeholder communication to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Documentation
Apply documentation to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Process Design
Apply process design to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Modernization
Apply modernization to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
Careers
Career paths this challenge builds toward
Completing this challenge demonstrates skills that transfer directly to these roles:
Systems Architect
Reconstructing and standardizing architecture decisions on a live modernization program is exactly the work of an architect who must keep a multi-year migration coherent and defensible across many teams and changing personnel.
This challenge sharpens
- architecture-decision-records
- modernization
- documentation
Engineering Practice Lead
Designing a review workflow and training a team to adopt it mirrors the practice-lead job of turning an ad hoc behavior into a durable, owned process that survives staff turnover and scales beyond its founder.
This challenge sharpens
- process-design
- documentation
- stakeholder-communication
Technical Program Manager
Framing decision hygiene as risk and cost for a senior sponsor, and managing the rollout across engineers, bridges directly to a TPM role coordinating large technical programs and their stakeholders.
This challenge sharpens
- stakeholder-communication
- technical-debt
- modernization