Governance

Enterprise architecture anti-patterns

14 April 2024

Every organisation tends to organise technology decision making differently, but some of the problems associated with architecture can be remarkably consistent…

How to make architecture decisions

28 March 2024

Knowing what decisions to make and when to make them can be something of a fine art

Architecture governance is a spectrum: exploring styles of enterprise architecture

8 January 2024

There is a spectrum of different styles of architecture governance, from the tightly structured and framework-driven, through to the deliberate absence of formal architecture.

Minimal Viable Architecture and the case for up-front design

13 November 2023

Evolutionary design and iterative development only get you so far - you still need some level of up-front thinking and forward planning.

Establishing a new architecture practice in agile organisations

2 September 2023

How should you go about building an architecture practice in organisations where people are allowed to say “no”? Ultimately, this becomes an exercise in persuasion, pragmatism, and patience.

Writing architectural design principles that scale decision making

13 June 2021

A good set of architectural principles can help to scale development by laying down some basic guidelines for decision making.

“Goldilocks” governance and agile architecture: balancing team autonomy and alignment

24 August 2020

There can be a tension between the lean, experimental nature of agile development and the more deliberate, planned demands of a large organisation. It does not have to be like this.

If “Enterprise Architecture” is failing, what should architects be doing instead?

11 March 2020

The discipline of architecture is an important part of any efficient engineering organisation. It just needs to adapt its game from the process-orientated “Enterprise Architecture” of old to something more collaborative and relevant.

Can TOGAF and Agile really go together?

27 January 2018

On the face of it, TOGAF describes a very different world to the agile preference for working software over documentation. That doesn’t mean that TOGAF is incompatible with agile, so long as you’re prepared to adapt its numerous building blocks.

What should a Scaled Agile “architectural runway” look like?

12 October 2017

The Scaled Agile Framework talks about an “architectural runway” as the main deliverable for agile architecture, yet it’s vague on the detail of what this looks like.