Insights
Thoughts on enterprise architecture
Analysis, field experience and points of view on EA, integration and AI-augmented transformation.
What never gets switched off: decommissioning is an architectural decision, not an end-of-project task
Application portfolios almost never shrink — not through negligence, but because switching a system off is the only lifecycle activity with no sponsor, no budget line and no visible benefit to whoever would fund it. The four locks that really prevent retirement, and why the terms of a system's exit belong in its commissioning.
Buy or build: the trade-off everyone treats as financial, and which is structural
The choice between a packaged product and bespoke development is almost always framed as a cost comparison, when it actually decides what the organisation will still be able to change. A grid based on business capabilities, and the anatomy of the most expensive drift of all: configuration that quietly becomes bespoke.
Integration is not plumbing: the interface contract is an architectural asset
Integration disorder almost never comes from the bus you chose, but from interfaces with no owner, no definition and no rule for change. What an interface contract actually contains, how to choose between synchronous and event-driven, and why an organisation's ability to change is written in its interfaces.
Designing for failure: resilience is an architectural property, not a recovery plan
Continuity plans answer the clean disaster; real incidents are partial, slow and contagious. How to translate continuity objectives into design decisions — bulkheads, degraded modes, control of state — and reserve the right level of resilience for the business capabilities that justify it.
Technical debt is not a technical problem: it is a funding decision
As long as debt stays an engineering topic, it never gets a budget. How to qualify it, tie it to the business capabilities it weakens, and make it arbitrable at the investment board — including the portion you deliberately choose never to repay.
Choosing the cloud without getting locked in: trajectory, reversibility and sovereignty
The real risk of the cloud isn't the cloud — it's irreversibility. Why vendor dependence is an architecture property decided upfront, what Europe's new regulatory framework changes, and how to keep an exit open without giving up the benefits.
Total cost of ownership: why an application's real price is decided in the architecture
TCO isn't a budget line, it's a design property. What total cost of ownership really covers, why it has become vital, how to calculate it — and why most of it is settled at the moment of architectural choice, long before the first invoice.
Architecture governance: guide without gating
When the architecture review board becomes a bottleneck, teams route around governance instead of following it. How to shift from up-front control to a framework that guides — guardrails, recorded decisions, automated assurance — without losing coherence.
Data governance: who owns what, and why it's an architecture question before it's a tooling one
Most data governance programmes fail not for lack of a platform, but from ambiguity over ownership, meaning and lifecycle. Why governance is decided in the architecture — and how to set a model that holds.
Security by design: build the threat into the architecture, not after it
Treated as a layer bolted on at the end of a project, security is expensive and protects poorly. How to embed threat modelling, segmentation and sovereignty requirements into your enterprise architecture views from the start.
Business capability mapping: the most underrated architecture artifact
The business capability map is the most powerful lens for prioritising IT investment and aligning technology with strategy. Why an application inventory isn't enough — and how to build yours.
The augmented architect: what AI really changes about the craft
Beyond the buzz, how AI concretely transforms an enterprise architect's day-to-day — and where their value concentrates.
TOGAF isn't a religion: how to adapt it to your context
How to extract value from TOGAF without falling into dogmatism — a pragmatic guide for CIOs who want outcomes, not a full ADM cycle.
Modernizing a banking IS in Africa: 5 realities frameworks ignore
Bank Al-Maghrib, BCEAO, available talent, telecom constraints: why a transformation program in Casablanca or Abidjan isn't run like one in Frankfurt.
Native AI: the real differentiator in enterprise architecture
Why bolting AI onto an existing platform isn't enough, and what changes when it's integrated natively into every module.
TCO: the hidden cost of legacy EA platforms
The license price is just the tip of the iceberg. A breakdown of the eight layers of total cost of ownership of an enterprise architecture platform — and a concrete framework to estimate it.