Architecture Review Board Myths
We need to dispel a few myths about an Architecture Review Board
- It is about enterprise architecture governance, not technology selection and implementation
- It manages the enterprise architecture governance process, not deciding
- It requires alignment to organizational priority, not traditional IT preferences
- It serves enterprise change, not IT development
Traditional Architecture Review Boards fail. They fail spectacularly in modern agile enterprise. Even from an IT perspective, they fail, as they actively work against the benefits of good agile-based software development methods.
Modern Architecture Review Boards support rapid change. They maintain enterprise agility. Digital enterprises require the ability to reach to unexpected opportunities and threats.
Features of a modern Architecture Review Board
A modern Architecture Review Board will:
- Be based on decentralized decision making
- Leverage principle-based superior architecture
- Maintain Digital Transformation required Integration & Data standards
- Facilitate Enabling IT standards
- Linkage to all levels of agile development
- Focus on issues that cross authority boundaries
- Empowering creativity and innovation from implementation teams
Purpose of an Architectural Review Board
An Architecture Review Board governs decentralized decision making. This requires us to look at governance. The simple definition of governance is a “system by which an organization is directed, overseen and held accountable for achieving its defined purpose.”
- A system
- A system that directs
- A system that oversees
- A system that holds people to account
- A system that focuses on achieving a defined purpose
Enterprise Architecture Governance focuses on two things: approval of the target architecture and implementation governance. In both areas, it directs, oversees, and holds to account for achieving the defined purpose.
When the target architecture is being developed, the Architecture Review Board will make sure the enterprise architect:
- Works on the problem the stakeholders care about
- Identifies a set of changes that deal with the problem
- Assesses the benefit and work required to change according to criteria the stakeholders used to approve
- Describe the change in a way that implementers understand what to do, and how to deliver the benefit
The Architecture Review Board directs, oversees, and holds to account the architects.
When the enterprise architecture is being implemented, the Architecture Review Board will make sure the implementers:
- Works on the change the stakeholders approved
- Live within any architecture constraints
- Deliver the expected benefits
They do this by supporting the enterprise architects performing Implementation Governance. Whenever a project focuses on a different problem, ignores constraints, or misses the expected benefits of the target architecture, they provide a recommended correction to the stakeholders who approved the architecture.
The architecture is a tool for direct change. It doesn’t matter whether it is the work packages, guidance, or constraints the architecture directs change. The recommended correction is used to hold the implementers to account.
The entire enterprise architecture process serves the stakeholders. It directs and controls architects, project sponsors, project teams, and operators. The architecture review board performs a vital function in enterprise architecture governance directing and holding to account advisors and implementers.
Five Goals for an Architecture Review Board
The five goals for a successful Architecture Review Boards are:
- Ensure the enterprise architecture team is can guide effective change. Including ensuring they have effectively implemented an enterprise architecture tool and other information management that support the EA use cases.
- Ensure Target Architecture development addresses the enterprise’s deficiencies
- Ensure stakeholders approved the target architecture
- Ensure change leaders deliver the expected benefits within their constraints
- Ensure the enterprise architecture governance system functions efficiently
Preparing to Take Part Participate in an Architecture Review Board
We are often asked. How do you establish enterprise architecture governance? What is the structure? When do you meet? Our answer is difficult because we speak about empowering the organization and establishing natural governance. That is establishing natural direction, oversight, and accountability.
When we use successful decision-making and reporting structures, we automatically get the right people.
Taking part in a successful, modern Architecture Review Board will be very different for most of us. Typically, people involved in enterprise architecture governance are successful change agents. We have succeeded by execution and planning. We get things done.
These attributes make us invaluable to the Enterprise Architecture Governance and the Architecture Review Board.
We can meet the five goals of a successful Architecture Review Board.
- We understand the type of shortfalls our organization needs to focus on. We understand our planning and execution timeframes. We can provide useful guidance to the enterprise architecture team about what it is useful to work on. We can select between Architecture to support Strategy, Architecture to Support Portfolio, Architecture to support Project, and Architecture to support Solution Delivery.We can help ensure the enterprise architecture team can guide effective change
- We can execute the Target Architecture Governance Checklist. We will know the right stakeholders for a given decision. We can assess a conflict of opinion between advisors. We can test the recommendation against the Stakeholders’ criteria (Concerns). We can ensure Target Architecture development addresses the enterprise’s deficiencies
- We understand our organization’s decision making. We can help the enterprise architects navigate the decision-making process. We know there is never a decision-maker, nor a decision meeting.We can ensure stakeholders approved the target architecture
- We understand how our organization establishes and tracks projects. We can read between the lines of status reports. We are involved in day-to-day change decisions. We can watch for where an expected benefit is sliding out of reach, or when a constraint is being ignored. We often have the immediate authority to oversee and hold to account the implementers. We can help the enterprise architects engage before the cost to correct a miss is too high.We can ensure change leaders deliver the expected benefits within their constraints
- We have formal and informal authority in our organization. We often have control of resources. We can step-in and act.We can ensure the enterprise architecture governance system functions efficiently
Think about meeting the five goals of an Architecture Review Board. As a participant, it doesn’t sound like we attend meetings and read documents. It sounds like we are involved in changing our organization for the better.
That is exactly what taking part in a modern Architecture Review Board is.
Adopting an Architecture Review Board
Adopting an Architecture Review Board requires your enterprise architecture team to inject itself. It needs to bring meaningful questions and advice to the right people at the right time. It means they need to explain enough about enterprise architecture so the participants in architecture decision-making understand what they are doing.
Starting is daunting. It will be hard work. It will require fitting into other organizational processes. The end goal is to build an Architecture Review Board that serves stakeholders. In a digital enterprise, it requires enabling decentralized decision making. Linkage to the means of change (project and agile development). A willingness to cross organizational boundaries.
We suggest you start with the basics. TOGAF 10 described modern Architecture Review Boards in the Practitioners’ Approach to Developing Enterprise Architecture Following the TOGAF ADM. Read the TOGAF Library’s Enterprise Architecture Governance Guide. Both Practitioner’s and Governors go into more detail than this brief article.
However, you should immediately shut down any traditional IT-centric Architecture Review Board. Also, educate your enterprise architects about decision making and enterprise architecture governance.
Align every action to the five goals for an Architecture Review Board:
- Ensure the enterprise architecture team can guide effective change
- Ensure Target Architecture development addresses the enterprise’s deficiencies
- Ensure stakeholders approved the target architecture
- Ensure change leaders deliver the expected benefits within their constraints
- Ensure the enterprise architecture governance system functions efficiently
You will need considerable change energy. Every day you wait, you are not guiding effective change. As always, if you need help to implement an architecture review board, or developing your EA Team, please contact us. We have a packaged Enterprise Architecture Governance Workshop.