Driving Innovation with Architectural Excellence

Introduction

Today’s organizations are under a lot of pressure. Not only do they need to provide innovative technology solutions, but they also need to ensure these solutions evolve with changing customer needs—and that means having excellent architecture. However, in the neverending push to develop new, marketable product features, many companies don’t pay enough attention to their technology architecture, a strategy that hurts them in the long run.

Allocating ongoing resources to enhance your technology stack and software architecture will pay your team back with time to innovate on your products. But what does this look like in practice? First, it means taking a periodic look at your architecture and ensuring that it represents the right long-term foundation. This review should include both the technologies you stand on as well as your own intellectual property. Second, it means transforming technical debt into an asset.

Evolving alongside current infrastructure can help your business innovate at scale, extending beyond the original scope of your product or service. This is particularly true with cloud services that are rapidly advancing their scaling and functional capabilities. The existing foundation is constantly moving, affording an opportunity for companies to stand on higher ground. But the cost of change is high, and architects don’t have the time and resources to chase every shiny new project. Striking the right balance here means finding a middle ground between being too aggressive and constantly churning your infrastructure, or moving too slowly and being stuck with proprietary building blocks.

Similarly, within your own software, the languages and tools need continual reevaluation—that way, they can remain modern, without being fragmented into too many dialects and frameworks. Additionally, in a more subtle approach, the major modules of code should be reviewed. Consider this: does a critical subsystem warrant a major refactor because it is an impediment to innovation? By re-writing and perhaps combining code across teams, can you make it easier for your product suite to advance into new markets? The right technical debt paydown can turn into product equity and enterprise value.

Of course, following this approach will require technical teams to change some of their thinking and processes. Here’s how your organization can focus on architecture while continuing to delight your customers