TECHNOLOGY SERVICE · 04
Enterprise Architecture
Architecture work that produces decisions, not a binder. For organisations carrying a decade of accumulated systems and facing a merger, a regulator, a platform migration or simply the point where nothing can be changed safely any more.
A map of what you actually run
Very few organisations have an accurate picture of their estate, and the gap between the documented architecture and the running one is where outages live. The first phase produces a verified inventory: applications, integrations, data stores, ownership, licence renewals and the undocumented scripts that turn out to be load-bearing.
Interviews with the engineers doing the work matter more than the last consultancy deck. Anything we cannot verify is marked as unverified rather than quietly assumed.
- Application and integration inventory with named owners
- Data flow and system-of-record mapping
- Risk register covering single points of failure and unsupported versions
Decisions with a paper trail
Each significant choice is captured as a short architecture decision record: the context, the options weighed, the decision and its consequences. Two years later, when somebody asks why the platform uses one message broker instead of another, the answer exists in the repository rather than in a departed employee's memory.
Those records also give the next architect a way to reverse a decision deliberately, with the original constraints in front of them.
Target state, sequenced into fundable steps
A target architecture nobody can afford is a document, not a plan. Ours is broken into increments that each stand alone, deliver something visible and can be stopped without stranding the work already done. Each step carries an indicative cost, a dependency list and a statement of what breaks if it is deferred.
Sequencing follows risk and business pressure, so the compliance deadline or the licence renewal drives the order rather than architectural neatness.
Governance engineers will actually follow
Standards succeed when the compliant path is the easy path. Rather than a review board that meets monthly and blocks everything, we favour published reference patterns, templated infrastructure and automated checks in the pipeline, with human review reserved for genuinely novel decisions.
What you get
- Verified current-state inventory of applications, integrations and data stores
- Risk register ranked by likelihood and business impact
- Target architecture documented in C4-style diagrams your engineers can read
- Architecture decision records held in your own repository
- Sequenced roadmap with indicative costs and dependencies per step
- Reference patterns and templates for the most common build types
- Board-level summary that survives without the architect in the room
Typical outcomes
4-6 weeks
Typical current-state and target assessment
3-5 year
Roadmap horizon, reviewed each quarter
100%
Of significant decisions recorded in writing
Stack we use
Questions
The output is deliberately small: diagrams your engineers can read, decision records in your repository, and a sequenced roadmap. If a document does not change a decision or a build, it does not get written.
Established frameworks inform the work, and we use C4 diagrams and architecture decision records as the default notation because developers actually maintain them. Nothing is adopted ceremonially when a simpler artefact would do.
Yes, and clients often ask us to. If you would rather keep design and build separate for governance reasons, the artefacts are written to be tendered to any competent supplier.
Data classification comes first, and residency, retention and access constraints are attached to each data set before any platform choice is made. The relevant regime differs between mainland, DIFC and ADGM entities, so we confirm which applies with your legal counsel early.
Related
Next step
Start with a 20-minute call.
Tell us the roles you need filled, the system you need built, or both. You will speak to someone who has done the work, and leave the call with a route forward.