Chapter 12: Practice the Review Board – First Mock

In this chapter, we will put all the knowledge we accumulatively learned from the past chapters into action. We will be introduced to our first full mock scenario, which is very close to a real scenario you may encounter in the review board.

After reading this chapter and the next ones, you are advised to reread the scenario and try to come up with a solution to it on your own.

You can do that as many times as needed until you feel comfortable enough. Try to stick to the three-hour solving window. We will learn some handy time management techniques in Appendix, Tips and Tricks, and the Way Forward.

In this chapter, we're going to cover the following main topics: 

• Introducing the full mock scenario – Packt Pioneer Auto
• Analyzing the requirements and creating a draft end-to-end solution

By the end of this chapter, you will be familiar with the shape, size, and complexity of a full mock...

Introducing the full mock scenario – Packt Pioneer Auto

Packt Pioneer Auto (PPA) is a global car rental company that provides services to end customers in AMER, EMEA, and APAC. PPA operates in 50 major cities across 10 different countries, including Italy, Spain, France, Australia, Japan, the USA, and the UK. In each city, there is an average of 5,000 cars available for rental through the PPA offices. Each city has an average of 10 offices.

PPA allows its customers to pre-book their car rental up to 3 months upfront. Historically, they used their call center to handle customer bookings, but they are looking to modernize their services. Customers can also walk into any of PPA's offices to rent an available car directly.

PPA has around 1 million registered users globally, with an average of 10 million car rentals every year.

PPA works with a network of partners to clean, repair, and maintain their fleet of cars. Each car is fitted with a modern GPS tracking device...

Analyze the requirements and creating a draft end-to-end solution

Give yourself enough time to go through the scenario and understand the big picture. You can even start adding notes with potential solutions. If you plan to do the in-person review board, you can add the notes on a separate piece of paper or on the printed scenario itself, while you can use Excel sheets for the virtual review board. You can use a combination of the two for both experiences; it depends on your preference and what you feel comfortable with.

We will cover two ways to prepare and play your presentation in Appendix, Tips and Tricks, and the Way Forward. We will also see an example of a time plan for the solution and presentation phases, where you allocate a specific period to do pre-planned activities.

Considering the size of the full scenarios and the number of shared requirements, we will split the finding of a solution and the presentation creation over two chapters. We will cover most of the scenario...

Summary

In this chapter, we were introduced to the first full mock scenario in this book. Full scenarios are naturally longer, more thorough, and contain many more challenges and requirements than the mini-scenarios. Yet we learned that the incremental solution methodology is the best way to avoid missing any requirements.

In this chapter, we tackled the first part of the scenario. The business processes are the heart and soul of any digital solution. It should be no surprise that creating a comprehensive solution starts with understanding each business process, dividing it into digestible chunks, then solving it as a whole.

We came across exciting use cases and design decisions, and we logically selected the right approach knowing that there are other alternatives. We prepared for some potential questions with ready answers, and we picked simple yet scalable architecture that would give us room to change if needed.

We created several business process diagrams that will help...