Enterprise Architecture
Standards, reference models and the governance that makes them stick.
The boundaries every project works inside, and the function that maintains them.
Advisory. A defined piece of architecture work, or standing up the function itself.
CIOs, architects and delivery leads who keep relitigating the same platform decisions.
Every project makes its own integration and platform choices, technical debt has no owner, or an architecture function exists and nobody routes work through it.
The practice
Business architecture
Capability models and value streams — the view that lets investment and duplication be argued in something other than org charts.
Current and target state
What you run today, what the target looks like, and the transition states in between. The middle one is where most architecture work fails to be useful.
Principles and standards
A short set of decisions made once: which platforms are strategic, where data lives, how systems integrate, what is allowed at the edges.
Reference architectures and patterns
The approved shape for the things you do repeatedly — an integration, a reporting stack, a customer-facing application — so each project is not a design exercise.
Application architecture
How the estate fits together, where it duplicates, and what to do about it. The estate view is the application estate review.
Technology standards
A maintained catalogue of what is approved, what is tolerated and what is on the way out, with dates attached rather than opinions.
Architecture governance
A review process with clear entry criteria, a decision record and a dispensation path — designed to unblock projects rather than queue them.
Technical debt
A register with an owner, a cost and a plan, so debt is a managed position rather than a complaint.
The architecture function
Roles, decision rights and the working rhythm, where you are standing up the capability rather than buying a deliverable.
Current, target, and the part that gets funded.
- 01Capability model
What the business does, expressed so investment and duplication become visible.
- 02Current state
What you run, how it fits together, and where the same job is done three times.
- 03Target state
The shape you are heading for, with standards and reference patterns behind it.
- 04Transition states
The sequence between them — which capability moves first, and what has to be true before the next one.
Current state is an inventory and target state is a wish. The transition sequence is what a funding conversation can act on, which is why architecture that stops at the target diagram never changes anything.
We build the architecture you need and no more: capability model, current and target state, the standards and reference patterns projects work against, and the review process that keeps them honest.
Architecture that projects route around is not governance
The common failure is a function that reviews late, says no without an alternative, and gets bypassed within two quarters. A review with published entry criteria, a stated turnaround, a decision record and a dispensation path gets used — because it is faster to go through it than around it.
Standards are decisions, not preferences
Which platforms are strategic. Where data is allowed to live. What integration looks like here. Made once, written down with dates against them, and revisited deliberately. Without that, every project relitigates the same four questions and the estate becomes a record of who argued hardest.
Transition states are the useful part
Current state is an inventory and target state is a wish. What gets funded is the sequence between them — which capability moves first, what has to be true before the next one, and which debt is paid on the way. That is the artefact a portfolio conversation can actually use.
What you keep
The code and the data·Your existing relationships·Approval and control·The ability to stop·The off switchWhat that means
IT Strategy
A technology plan tied to what the business is trying to do, and funded.
Learn more ↗AI Strategy & Enablement
The same strategy discipline, pointed entirely at AI.
Learn more ↗IT Portfolio Management
Demand, capacity and money, managed as one view instead of three arguments.
Learn more ↗IT Operating Model
How IT is organized, funded and held to account — and who decides what.
Learn more ↗IT Service Management Design
Designing the processes — not running your service desk.
Learn more ↗Program & Project Delivery Assurance
An independent read on whether a programme is where it says it is.
Learn more ↗IT Financial Management
Knowing what technology costs, where it goes, and what it buys.
Learn more ↗Fractional CIO
Senior technology leadership, in whatever shape the situation needs.
Learn more ↗Start with a 45-minute briefing.
No pitch. We’ll map your situation against what actually works and tell you honestly where to start.