How do you review and approve solution architecture?

- 🎯 Define evaluation criteria tailored to project objectives, requirements, constraints, and risks, aligning with organizational and industry standards. - 🛠️ Assess functionality to ensure the solution architecture meets all functional and non-functional requirements. - 🌟 Evaluate quality attributes like performance, reliability, security, scalability, and maintainability. - 📈 Check feasibility by considering the fit within the project’s budget, timeline, and resources. - 🔗 Verify compatibility with existing systems, platforms, and technologies of the organization. - 📜 Ensure compliance with legal, regulatory, ethical, and social norms specific to the organization and industry.

To start with with need to ensure that architecture support long term strategic goal of organization, verify that solution deliver clear business value like increase revenue, improve customer satisfaction, stakeholder alignment Technology stack compatibility with existing system technologies, architecture scale to meet future needs, provide robust security measures. Solution complies with industry regulations, adhere to internal policies architectural standards Align with defined cost, availability of key resources, total cost of ownership, implementation operational cost, solution improve operational efficiency, includes disaster recovery business continuity. Use innovative approaches, designed to accommodate future technology advancement

To review and approve solution architecture, first define criteria including functionality, scalability, and security. Align architecture with business objectives, ensuring it meets operational needs. Conduct phased reviews focusing on scalability, performance, maintainability, portability, security, and integration. Brainstorm on design patterns to optimize these aspects. In the final review, validate against business goals and adjust as needed. If on AWS; leverage Well-Architected Tool in assessing architectures based on best practices, AWS Trusted Advisor for guidance in optimization.

- 📝 Define evaluation criteria based on project objectives, requirements, constraints, and risks, including functionality, quality, feasibility, compatibility, and compliance. - 🔍 Assess functionality by ensuring the architecture meets all functional and non-functional requirements. - 📊 Evaluate quality attributes like performance, reliability, security, scalability, and maintainability to ensure system robustness. - 💡 Review feasibility to confirm the architecture aligns with budget, timeline, and available resources. - 🔗 Check compatibility with existing systems, platforms, and technologies to ensure seamless integration. - 📑 Verify compliance with legal, regulatory, ethical, and industry standards to avoid potential issues.

To review and approve solution architecture, it’s important to define the criteria based on business needs, technical feasibility, security, and scalability. Set clear guidelines, such as performance, cost, and compliance with data governance standards. For example, in cloud computing, ensure the architecture uses AWS Lambda for scalability and cost-efficiency, and in data architecture, choose between a data lake or data warehouse based on processing needs. Defining these criteria ensures the solution aligns with both business goals and technical best practices.

Review and approve solution architecture by defining clear criteria. Consider scalability, security, and alignment with business goals. Personally, establishing criteria ensures thorough evaluation and drives confident decisions. Define, assess, approve!

A tailored evaluation criteria is the first step in reviewing and approving solution architecture. Evaluation Criteria: ✅ Functionality: Ensure all requirements are met. ⭐ Quality: Assess performance, reliability, security, scalability, and maintainability. 💰 Feasibility: Fit within budget, timeline, and resources. 🔗 Compatibility: Integrate with existing systems and technologies. ✅ Compliance: Adhere to legal, regulatory, and industry standards.

"The absence of clear review criteria for solution architecture is like building a house without a blueprint - guaranteed rework and delays." Review and Approval of Solution Architecture should have below criteria which follows the 5 main pillars for the Well Architected Framework. ✅Security: Secure your Data, Application, Compute, Network, IAM with Physical Security. ✅Performance & Scalability: Should handles increased load & capacity to accommodate future growth. ✅Availability & Recoverability: Should be highly available with Disaster recovery in place. ✅Reliability & Maintainability: Modular design, Fault tolerance with clear documentation in place. ✅Cost-effectiveness: Optimizes resource utilization & Considers long-term costs.

For complex applications and organization, it is good to breakdown the Solution Architecture into: 1. Business Arch 2. Application Arch 3. Data Arch 4. Integration Arch 5. Infrastructure Arch 6. Security Arch 7. Deployment Arch This ensures that all aspects get covered.

Conducting a review and approval of solution architecture involves a thorough evaluation. Scrutinize every component for alignment with requirements and scalability. In my experience, a detailed review not only highlights potential issues but also fosters collaborative improvements, ensuring a robust and effective architecture.

A collaborative review with key stakeholders is the second step. Review Process: 👥 Involve Stakeholders: Include project sponsors, business owners, end users, and experts. 📄 Provide Documentation: Share an overview with rationale, assumptions, alternatives, and trade-offs. 📊 Use Visuals: Present diagrams, models, and specifications. 🎤 Present & Demonstrate: Highlight key features and use prototypes, mock-ups, or code snippets. ✔️ Checklists: Verify the solution against project criteria and standards.

So once we know the business problem, we can focus the review on it and pay attention to the appropriate attributes like performance, scalability, compliance, availability etc. The review should go through the stages of gathering the information about the state as-is and highlighting the pros and cons in the context of the business. The information should come from obserability tools, source code, deployments, documentation and many other sources. In the end based on this data the recommendations should be formulated.

Follow below Review Process after the criteria is defined. ✅Security: Assess data protection (encryption), access controls, compliance needs. ✅Scalability: Evaluate capacity for future growth & handling increased load. ✅Reliability: Analyze fault tolerance, redundancy & disaster recovery plan to ensure uptime. ✅Cost-Effectiveness: Consider resource optimization, long-term costs & right-sizing of resources. ✅Maintainability: Check for modular design, clear documentation & ease of updates. ✅Operational Considerations: Evaluate monitoring, logging, alerting & integration with existing management tools. ✅Approval Deliverables↓ ⏩Review Report: Document findings, strengths, weaknesses, improvement recommendations, RAID log with mitigation plan.

Assemble a team of relevant stakeholders, including architects, subject matter experts, security specialists, and representatives from affected business units. This team will thoroughly review the proposed solution architecture against the defined criteria. - Evaluate the architectural components, design patterns, and technology choices - Assess the risk factors and potential failure points - Identify any gaps or areas that require further clarification or optimization - Conduct testing and proof-of-concept activities, if necessary

Conducting the solution architecture review is like staging a grand theatrical production. Assemble a cast of key players - project sponsor, business owner, end users, developers, architects, domain experts. Each brings their unique perspective to the stage. Through collaborative script readings (document reviews), captivating soliloquies (presentations), and interactive improvisation (prototype demos), the team explores the proposed solution's nuances and potential. Checklists serve as the director's notes, ensuring no critical scene is missed. By the curtain fall, everyone has had their moment, and the solution architecture is ready for its grand debut.

When conducting a solution architecture review, it’s more than just ticking boxes. It’s about bringing stakeholders together for a constructive dialogue that aligns with the vision. A well-prepared review includes more than diagrams and documentation; it should convey the rationale, trade-offs, and the thinking behind key decisions. Presenting mock-ups, wireframes, or prototypes adds clarity while gathering insights from diverse perspectives sharpens the outcome. The review process should transform stakeholder feedback into valuable inputs that refine the architecture, ensuring it meets both the project objectives and the organization’s broader goals.

It is important to keep an open mind when reviewing your solutions, accepting criticism without arguing will keep the discussion open and the feedback rolling. Reviewing all feedback with an open mind should give you some insights you would miss otherwise.

With the requirements and solution design already in place, our next step is to assess how well the solution meets the critical criteria of compliance, security, scalability, and reliability. Additionally, we should engage stakeholders to review and discuss the findings by presenting detailed reports, ensuring alignment and transparency across all aspects of the project.

Thirdly, the solution architecture will be formally approved based on the results of the review. Approval Process: ✍️ Sign-Off: Document agreement and acceptance, noting conditions or dependencies. 🔄 Change Management: Define processes for requesting, reviewing, and approving changes. 🏛️ Governance: Assign roles and responsibilities for oversight throughout the project lifecycle.

In a large program, having a Design Authority or Architecture Office is crucial. This group typically includes Enterprise Architects, Application Architects, Data Architects, Integration Architects, Security Architects, and Domain-specific Architects. Their role is to review/approve solutions against enterprise, business and solution architecture principles. They ensure that the solution aligns with business requirements and other critical aspects like interoperability, extensibility, security and other NFRs. The Solution Design Authority acts as the focal point for opportunities, threats, and change monitoring. This would ensure the Target Operating Model aligns with business objectives, and benefits in line with the overall strategy.

"An IT architecture without a clear approval path is like a blueprint lost in bureaucracy" Organization must have a clear approval path of IT-SA, not too lenient that every loose ended solution gets approved and not too stringent that nothing gets approved. On a high level below approval process should be followed: ✅Submit Review Report to ARB. ✅Analyze feedback from the ARB. Identify areas requiring changes. ✅Update the solution architecture to address ARB concerns. ✅Clearly document all changes made based on ARB feedback. ✅Re-present if significant changes were made. ✅Document final decision from ARB & rationale for future reference in Architecture Repository. ✅Communicate the final decision & approved architecture to all stakeholders.

In my experience reviewing and approving solution architecture, the key is to scrutinize both the strategic alignment and technical viability. It’s like assessing a master plan—ensuring it not only meets the project’s goals but also integrates seamlessly with existing systems. This thorough evaluation not only secures the project's success but also upholds the integrity of the architectural vision.

When reviewing and approving solution architecture, a structured approach is key. It’s not just about agreeing on the design but formalizing that approval with clear documentation. This includes capturing any conditions or assumptions that could impact implementation. Effective change management ensures any updates are communicated and managed properly, while governance assigns accountability throughout the project lifecycle. By embedding these practices, we ensure that the architecture remains adaptable, aligned with business goals, and consistently delivers value across its lifespan.

Esta etapa é diferente em cada empresa que atuei, temos grandes corporações onde possuímos arquitetos de várias expertises, como arquiteto de dados, corporativo, segurança da informação, dentre outros, e este comitê se junta para garantir que a gestão de mudança ocorra sem causar impacto nos negócios e que esteja da melhor forma possível para entrega, mas também já trabalhei em ambientes onde as iterações de entrega são rápidas e os times e o arquiteto de soluções possuem mais autonomia para definirem a entrega sem um comitê de aprovação, mas isto exige maturidade e capacidade de errar que da mesma forma que funciona muito bem para algumas empresas, pode ser uma catástrofe para outras.

As we approach the sign-off phase, it is crucial to present the solution to all dependent teams and clearly identify any remaining dependencies. At this point, all other dependencies have been resolved, and sign-off has been obtained from the relevant stakeholders. The documentation of dependencies, the solution, and the architecture diagram will be finalized and made available for reference.

Approving the solution architecture is like affixing the royal seal to a decree. It's the formal stamp of approval signaling the solution is ready to be implemented and governs the project's future direction. The sign-off is the royal signature, indicating all stakeholders have agreed and accepted the architectural decree. Change management is the process for amending the decree as needed, ensuring modifications are properly reviewed, approved, and communicated. Governance assigns trusted advisors and ministers to oversee implementation and uphold the architectural decree throughout the project's lifecycle. With the royal seal in place, the solution architecture becomes the law of the land, guiding the project towards success.

If everything is fine, it must be inserted into the architecture repository and deliver an artifact to the team that will implement the solution and the architect must continue helping and checking if it is being implemented in the way the solution was designed.

Every organisation has it's own approval lifecycle, however, presenting everything mentioned above truly in few minutes to ARB (Architecture Review Board) in alignment with what has been discussed across domain architects. Ensure risks are captured with proper mitigation or ownership plan, debts are documented with clear timelines, etc. Communicate the Architecture with all criteria around Risk, and debts with business, product owners and share the impact on the business process, justify the debts gain approval then I approve

Establish and track key performance indicators (KPIs) to objectively assess the architecture’s effectiveness. In our customer relationship management (CRM) system, we defined KPIs such as system uptime, response time, and user satisfaction. These metrics provided quantitative data to support the review and approval process. Develop and execute scenario-based tests to validate the architecture under various conditions. In our IoT data processing system, we created scenarios to test data ingestion, real-time processing, and failure recovery. These tests simulated real-world conditions and identified potential weaknesses in the architecture.

Solution architecture combines many specialist architectures, solution architects should consider them as T-shaped, with broader experience to rope in specialists for various review questions, than rely on own's experience. If need be, the questions should be raised with SMEs within our outside the organization , and verifiable published solutions/patterns should be linked to solution architecture document to prove the validity of the architecture that has been reviewed

I follow a structured process to ensure effectiveness and reliability when reviewing and approving solution architecture. Firstly, I analyze the business requirements and objectives to understand the overarching goals of the solution. Then, I evaluate the proposed architecture against industry best practices, ensuring scalability, flexibility, security, and efficiency. I pay close attention to the alignment between the architecture and the organization's technology stack and standards.

As a solution architect with 20 years of experience in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, adherence to standards in solution architecture is essential for ensuring compliance, security, and interoperability. I ensure that the proposed architecture aligns with industry standards, architectural best practices, and regulatory requirements. This includes following established patterns such as microservices or layered architecture, implementing industry standards like SEMI standard, security standards like ISO 27001 or GDPR, and adhering to interoperability protocols such as RESTful APIs or SOAP. Documentation and governance processes are established to track compliance and ensure ongoing adherence throughout the solution's lifecycle.

IMO, It's important to conduct a risk assessment to identify any potential issues that could arise e.g. technical problems or impacts on existing systems. Also, when approved, It is critical to follow up during the implementation to make sure everything aligns with the approved plan and to address any problems that come up. Additionally, create a maintenance plan that outlines how the solution will be supported and updated over time. Document the technical debt that may have occurred, and prioritize to address in future versions.

Uma solução precisa considerar, também, a melhor tecnologia a ser usada. Esse "melhor", contudo, envolve tanto a análise puramente tecnológica (considerando o parque tecnológico da empresa) e, também, a expertise dos desenvolvedores que irão desenvolver o que foi proposto. O critério de manutenibilidade e suporte passa por estes pontos. Olhando isso, algumas adaptações podem ter que surgir, no desenho idealizado - quando ele não nasce a partir dessas considerações.

Data, Security and Industry Regulations are major pillars to consider in all architecture and ensure by design those elements are addressed and fit into the enterprise strategy and minimise the debt as possible. Ensure Architects are enabled enough through the journey and gained the right technology knowledge and ready to reuse Ensure the architecture produced reusable artefacts, patterns that can be leveraged. Ensure Solution Architecture follow a proper template and consumable to the next level

Everyone should treat the solution architecture as a living document that may need to be updated or refined based on evolving requirements, technological advancements, or lessons learned during implementation. Authors should ensure that the approved solution architecture is well-documented and communicated to all relevant stakeholders, including development teams, operations, and support personnel. Post-implementation review: After the solution has been implemented, conduct a retrospective review to assess its effectiveness, identify areas for improvement, and capture lessons learned for future architecture initiatives.

8. Documentation and Approval Documentation: Make sure the architecture is well-documented. This includes diagrams, specifications, and explanations. Formal Approval: Once satisfied, formally approve the architecture. Ensure all key stakeholders agree and sign off.

Consider using a Design Authority to oversee approvals. Factor in enterprise-wide implications using frameworks like FEAF. And don't forget - a good architecture is like a good joke. If you have to explain it, it's probably not that good.