Core IT Architecture Training #3
February 10, 2026 2026-02-25 13:02Core IT Architecture Training #3
If you’re delivering complex systems but decisions feel fragmented, late, or unclear, you’re not alone.
5 signs you need CORE Architecture
If you’re delivering complex systems but decisions feel fragmented, late, or unclear, you’re not alone.
You deliver but don’t decide
You deliver but don’t decide
You are trusted to make systems work, but you are not consistently involved when direction is defined.
Architecturally Significant Decisions
Architecturally significant decisions (ASDs) are “the stuff that matters” as Martin Fowler describes it. They describe the scope and boundaries of a decision that will have significant impact on the outcomes of a particular piece of work or the organization as a whole.
An ASD should be motivated by previous and similar works. The goal of the ASD is to make decisions explicit, easy to track and link to requirements, design reasoning and outcomes.
Making Architecturally Significant Decisions
Architecturally significant decisions (ASDs) are “the stuff that matters” as Martin Fowler describes it. They describe the scope and boundaries of a decision that will have significant impact on the outcomes of a particular piece of work or the organization as a whole.
You are invited late
Architectural input is requested after key constraints and commitments are already set.
Architecture Lifecycle
When collaboration works well, it leads to significant gains in productivity and provides vital access to skills, experience and knowledge.
Governance Without Bureaucracy: How to Make Architecture Work for the Business
“Architecture Governance.” For many, the term triggers eye rolls and not without reason. It’s often associated with long meetings, slow approvals, and documentation that adds more confusion than clarity. Instead of enabling progress, governance becomes something teams try to avoid or work around.
Value is hard to articulate
Business intent and technical realities are discussed, but rarely translated into a shared understanding.
Strategic Roadmap Canvas
When collaboration works well, it leads to significant gains in productivity and provides vital access to skills, experience and knowledge.
The Anatomy of SCREAM: A Perfect Storm in EA Cupboard
Enterprise architecture (EA) is caught in a maelstrom. The promise of strategic alignment and thoughtful design is constantly challenged by business dynamics, emerging and evolving technologies, and vendors’ strategic promotion of capabilities through conferences and connections.
Complexity is increasing
Systems grow harder to explain, evolve, and govern than the value they deliver.
Technical Debt
The concept of Technical Debt is commonly used, and misused, in agile projects. When used correctly, it can be a valuable way of delivering business value early and avoiding waste; when used badly, it can lead to fragile products which become harder and harder to change. Architects need to understand when to apply the concept effectively to help deliver value to the business.
The Hidden Cost of Complexity: Managing Technical Debt Without Losing Momentum
Over the weekend, I came across a study from Yale published in Neuron that explored the effects of visual clutter on the brain. It was striking—not only for its implications in neuroscience but for its uncanny parallels to one of IT’s most persistent challenges: technical debt.
Decisions involve uncertainty
You are expected to guide trade-offs without a shared architectural frame.
QATT Card
The Quality Attribute Card is built to create ATAM scenarios to test the architecture decisions and approaches of a particular architecture. It is based on the notion of taking quality attribute requirements and then testing them with scenarios. The scenario includes a source of a ‘stimulus’ which is something the architecture must respond to and is generally taken from requirements.
Everyone’s Right, and Everyone’s Wrong: The Viewpoint Problem in Architecture
There’s a point in almost every architecture meeting where everyone nods as if we all agree… and then proceeds to argue for an hour about completely different things.
There is no single right starting point. Some people begin by exploring the BTABoK. Others prefer learning through community. Some are ready for structured progression. What matters is choosing the level of support that matches your current responsibility.
Architecture starts where certainty ends.
