Improving Software Architecture Through Murder
summary
A murder board is a NASA‑born panel that vets truly high‑risk plans by having senior engineers, security/compliance or business leaders depending on whether the fear is technical, social capital or social contract focus; preparation means runbooks, ADRs and a short set of pre‑shared questions so defenders can rehearse. A four–six person board vetted a risky legacy runtime upgrade, found no fatal flaws, and enabled a smooth rollout that reduced deploy risk and unlocked steady modernization. Attack the plan not the people.
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chapters (14)
- 0:00Welcome
- 1:04Murder boards in software
- 2:52Fear in engineering
- 5:17What is a murder board
- 9:34Psychological safety
- 10:37When to use murder boards
- 13:46Running a murder board
- 14:09Selecting murder board members
- 17:40Case study rockets
- 24:07Real-world murder board
- 33:04Murder boards success
- 36:15High-risk frequency
- 38:24Pitching murder boards
- 39:46Q&A
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