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Written-First Culture: Memos, Design Docs, RFCs

This generated surface maps a learner-facing curriculum unit to its canonical source routes.

Curriculum surface​

  • Open learner-facing unit
  • Curriculum path: content/curriculum/production/semester-08-system-design-leadership/module-05-technical-leadership-strategy/concepts/cluster-03-influence-without-authority/07-written-first-culture-memos-design-docs-rfcs-primary.md
  • App: production
  • Semester: semester-08-system-design-leadership
  • Module: module-05-technical-leadership-strategy
  • Unit kind: concept
  • Curation level: module_curated

Learning objectives​

  • Explain Written-First Culture: Memos, Design Docs, RFCs as technical leadership through decision quality, communication, and long-horizon tradeoffs rather than job-title folklore.
  • Use Written-First Culture: Memos, Design Docs, RFCs to make engineering direction explicit: what to prioritize, what risks to surface, and how to align teams around constraints.
  • Use fundamentals-of-software-architecture to connect the learner explanation to architecture strategy, team design, roadmap thinking, and technical stewardship.

Prerequisites​

  • Comfort with system-design tradeoffs, architecture decisions, and the operational realities of production systems.

Source books​

  • fundamentals-of-software-architecture

Source routes​

Fundamentals Of Software Architecture​

  • /books/fundamentals-of-software-architecture via Fundamentals: Architecture decision records, Fundamentals: Architecture decisions, Fundamentals: Diagramming and presenting architecture, Fundamentals: Negotiation and facilitation, Fundamentals: The software architect as a leader

Supporting curriculum routes​

No supporting curriculum routes linked yet.

External enrichment​

  • Team Topologies (read_if_stuck) - Helps learners connect architecture and platform decisions to real team structure and coordination limits.
  • Thoughtworks Technology Radar (optional_deep_dive) - Provides a concrete example of technical strategy expressed as explicit adoption and risk guidance.

AI companion modes​

  • Explain simply
  • Socratic tutor
  • Challenge my understanding
  • Diagnose my confusion
  • Connect forward / backward

Source-of-truth note​

This teaching unit is learner-facing guidance. Its canonical source backbone is the referenced book fundamentals-of-software-architecture, and outside material should only clarify or strengthen that backbone.