Pillar · Enterprise Architecture & Transformation
Enterprise Architecture & Governance
Target state, design authority and a decision log that holds up in the steering committee.
What is at stake for the CIO
Programmes rarely fail on one wrong decision. They fail because the same decision was taken three times and recorded nowhere. A decision log is therefore not a document; it is the operating system of a multiyear programme.
The question behind it
How are architecture decisions made accountable to the steering committee and the CFO?
- 1Target state
- 2Architecture principle
- 3Design authority
- 4Approval in the decision log
Systems and processes
- Target-state architecture and architecture principles
- Design authority and decision paths
- Clean core rules and their exceptions
- A decision log carrying rationale and validity
- Governing system integrators and platform vendors
- International templates and rollout waves
- Portfolio and investment steering
- Decision papers for the CIO, the CFO and the steering committee
Decisions that go wrong most often
- There are architecture principles, but no body allowed to refuse a deviation.
- The system integrator designs, reviews and delivers — then writes the audit.
- The steering committee gets status colours instead of a basis for deciding.
- The target state exists as a slide, not as the basis for approvals.
Decisions FirstRetail prepares
- 1Who decides on deviations from the target state, and how that decision is recorded.
- 2Which architecture principles are binding and where exceptions stay permissible.
- 3How system integrators and platform vendors are effectively governed.
- 4How architecture decisions are made presentable as investment decisions.
Where the experience comes from
Ownership of a EUR 25M technology portfolio in an international luxury group, architecture and governance work across more than ten Maisons on one shared platform, and currently enterprise architecture in a consolidation programme covering more than ten SAP systems. Advisory without an implementation business, so that review and delivery are not the same hand.
Every name here stands for historical delivery experience from completed programmes. None of them is an endorsement or an indication of a current client relationship. I do not display logos; that would need a permission I do not have.