Sketch a system on a whiteboard or napkin so a non-engineer can follow it. Make diagrams and charts that make the point instead of containing the point. Redraw two of your real artifacts publishably. A diagram is a compiled program: your sketch is the source, the viewer's understanding is the runtime, and bugs in the source are misreadings at runtime. Roam's six frames are the type system — pick the wrong type and it won't compile in the viewer's head. Tufte's data-ink ratio is dead-code elimination for charts. The cold-read test is the test suite: have a non-engineer run your diagram before you ship it to the README, the deck, or the design review. And the whiteboard is the REPL — fast feedback, low ceremony, exploratory by nature; the polished diagram in the doc is the production build of the thing you prototyped live.
This course unlocks once you've finished its prerequisite. Open prerequisite →
For a lot of engineers — especially the integrator type this curriculum keeps addressing — this is a module where you start ahead. You already think visually: you model the system…
The fastest way to transfer a systems-shaped vision into another brain is a picture, not a paragraph. Engineers who can draw clean systems win design reviews faster, explain produ…
Approach: Essential
Approach: Important
Approach: Important
Approach: Reference
Approach: Reference
Approach: Reference
1. Redraw your most important project's architecture as a diagram a non-engineer can follow. Replace the existing README diagram (or add the missing one). Get one non-engineer to …
9 lessons. Read in order; spiral back when you need to. By the end you'll have used the core ideas twice — once on the abstract, once on something you'll meet at work next week.