Best practices

Work backwards from workload requirements to design well-architected clusters

Maintain parity between production and non-production environments

Create Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) for key decisions

Separate one-way door decisions (irreversible) from two-way door decisions (reversible)

Add 15% for project management overhead and 10-20% risk buffer

Ensure Kubernetes version compatibility (Amazon EKS doesn't support alpha features)