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KEY POINTS:

  • Grounded Architecture structure has three elements: The Data Pillar, The People Pillar, The Architecture Activities Platform.
  • The Data Pillar enables architects to make data-informed decisions based on a real-time and complete overview of the organization’s technology landscape.
  • The People Pillar is a strong network of people doing architecture across the organization wnsuring that architecture function has any tangible impact.
  • The Architecture Activities Platform does everything that architecture typically does, leveraging data and people pillars to create a data-informed, organization-wide impact.

In this part of my playbook, I will describe the structure of Grounded Architecture. I chose the term “Grounded Architecture” to highlight that the primary goal of my approach is to avoid having an “ivory tower” architecture function disconnected from the organization, which is a fast-moving, global, and diverse setting is a real danger. In other words, I wanted to create an architectural function that is well-grounded in the organization.

Grounded Architecture has three elements:

  • The Data Pillar,
  • The People Pillar,
  • The Architecture Activities Platform.

The Data Pillar enables architects to make data-informed decisions based on a real-time and complete overview of the organization’s technology landscape. The Data Pillar section provides more details.

The People Pillar is a strong network of people doing architecture across the organization. This pillar is crucial to ensure that architecture function has any tangible impact. As noted by Gregor Hohpe, to transform an organization, you do not need to solve mathematical equations; you need to move people. The People Pillar section provides more details.

Lastly, the Architecture Activities Platform does everything that architecture typically does, leveraging data and people pillars to create a data-informed, organization-wide impact. The Architecture Activites Platform provides more details on Technology Architecture Activities Platform. While the Architecture Activities Platform looks most like a typical architecture function, I consider such a platform only valid with the healthy Data and People pillars. Without data and people connections, an Architecture Activities Platform becomes an ivory tower institution, generating opinion-based decisions disconnected from reality.

Introduction
← Goals
Structure
Data Pillar →