25. Whiteboard fieldcraft

Anyone can demo. Learn to draw it.

The loop: Ask. Draw. Validate. Repeat.

1. Ask three questions before touching the marker.
2. Draw their current state first, in their words. Use their app names.
3. Validate each box: “Is this right?” Hand them the marker to fix it.
4. Draw the future state in a second color.
5. Write numbers on arrows: TB, GB/s, $/month.
6. Close by circling the one thing that changes and asking what blocks it.

Board layout

• Top-right corner: the five numbers (stored TB, growth, read multiple, throughput, RTO).
• Left: sources. Center: B2. Right: consumers.
• Red: threats and costs. Green: restore and savings paths. Blue: data flow.
• Bottom: the one-line rule (3-2-1-1-0, “$0 partner egress”, “one namespace”).

Five shapes only

Box (system), cylinder (storage), cloud (provider), stick figure (people), arrow (flow). Anything else slows you down.

Openers that work

• “Before I draw anything, where does the data start its life?”
• “Show me the last restore you ran.”
• “Where are your GPUs this month?”

Mistakes

• Drawing Backblaze first. Draw them first.
• Logos instead of words. Words survive a photo.
• No numbers. A board without numbers is a slide.
• Arguing with the incumbent. Draw them in as a box and move on.

Virtual whiteboarding

Use a shared canvas (Excalidraw, Miro, FigJam). Pre-build the five shapes. Keep the same layout so screenshots look consistent across calls. Mermaid versions of every board are in sections 09 to 13.

The SE’s 60-second architecture talk track

“Here is your data today [left]. Here is what it costs you to use it [red arrows]. Here is B2 [center], one hot class, S3 API. Your tools point here [blue arrows]. Restores and partners pull for free [green]. This copy cannot be deleted [lock]. That is the change. What would stop us testing it next week?”