Syntasso's Stack the Deck
Whether you joined us at an event or are exploring on your own, Stack the Deck is a fun, hands-on way to explore what makes a great Internal Developer Platform.
You’ll get to define your promises, challenge assumptions, and discover what “platform as a product” really means for your team.
Get guided through platform service design by answering questions like: What is the contract with your users? How do you provision both shared and unique resources? Where do you include key business process rules? And not forgetting important final touches like including a user interface and set of deployment targets!
Why play Stack the Deck?
Effective internal platforms help you go faster, be safer, and increase efficiency as you scale.
To achieve an effective platform, you must incorporate three essential principles:
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Self-service and on-demand access
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Consistently applied business processes
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Fleet-manage services at scale
Use this card deck to design your own internal developer platform services that enable an effective platform.
You can then translate these designs into a Syntasso Kratix Enterprise (SKE) Promise API or any other platform orchestration API tooling you use.
Before you play
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Identifying something to provide “as a service”.
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Collect representative stakeholders for this service into a meeting.
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Write down the target service at the top of the board to confirm a shared focus on your platform engineering goal.
Create your API
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Identify ‘inputs’ your users can or should configure.
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Include ‘outputs’ that users depend on to access and maintain their resources.
Create your service
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Identify ‘provisioning actions’ and ‘process rules’ shared by all resources before any requests.
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Define ‘provisioning actions’ and ‘process rules’ that must occur per request.
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Put the finishing touches on your three-tier platform with a set of ‘interfaces’ and ‘destinations’.
Ready to play? Print your Board and create your first promise!
How to Enter the #SyntassoStackTheDeck Challenge
You can enter the Syntasso Stack the Deck Challenge in two easy ways:
🏟️ Option 1: Meeting with your team in person? Use the card deck and a printable board!
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Grab a card deck from the Syntasso booth at FastFlowCon or KCD Edinburgh.
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Visit www.syntasso.io/stack-the-deck to download and then print a playing board.
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Build a Promise with your teammates at the office by placing relevant cards on your playing board.
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Post a photo of your Promise on LinkedIn with the hashtag #SyntassoStackTheDeck.
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Sit back, relax, and wait to win!
💻 Option 2: Only working virtually with your team? Use the electronic version to collaborate!
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Head to www.syntasso.io/stack-the-deck to access the virtual Miro board.
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Collaborate over video conferencing to build a Promise by dragging and dropping the cards across the board.
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Post a screenshot of your Promise on LinkedIn with the hashtag #SyntassoStackTheDeck.
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Then, cross your fingers and wait to win!
Note: Challenge closes on 11:59pm BST on November 30th, 2025
How to Print the #SyntassoStackTheDeck Board
To access the Board, click here.
Printing on A2 paper
The Board sits nicely on an A2 printout and should look like the image below.
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Printing on A4
If you're printing it on an A4 sheet, it will take six pages to complete the board. The printing instructions should be set to the image below.
The grid lines will look like this
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The page dimensions will look like this
💻 Play Virtually, Anytime, Anywhere
Didn’t catch us at an event? No worries!
You can build your promise virtually using our Miro Template. Just make a copy and start dragging and dropping your cards.
Log in to Miro and make a copy of the SyntassoStackTheDeck Miro template.
Enjoyed playing virtually? See us at future events for the physical deck, or reach out to get one sent your way!
