Architecture management is not for architects
- Harri Takala
- Aug 18, 2025
- 3 min read
Architecture management Is Teamwork—With Business People at the Core
Architecture management is about collaboration, with business people at the heart of it. Architects in their respective fields can catalyze and coordinate the work, but it’s the people in the business who deliver the results. Success hinges on good methods, practices, and the tools people use.
If an organization faces financial challenges, would you expect the finance department alone to boost revenue and cut losses?
Architects in various fields, from overall architecture to business, application, data and technology architecture, face a similar problem. They are tasked with taking care of the architecture and ensuring that it remains under control and develops in the right direction. However, sometimes it happens that in order to succeed in these goals, architects are required to delve into magic or at least the skills to do things that are like miracles.
Who is actually responsible for the architecture?
If an organization wants to improve financial performance, it requires company-wide commitment and action. The same applies to architecture management. If business processes struggle during a system project, don’t call the architect or project manager—reach out to the leader responsible for operations.
When thinking about the challenges of processes, responsible persons, and various internal and external groups of people around business architecture, the logic is easy to understand, but the same principle applies to other areas as well.
Administrators and application owners: the real builders of architecture
Success in application architecture comes from strong lead users and application owners. Similarly, data architecture is the domain of business people—its development and challenges are best understood by those who work with it daily.
Architects play a critical role in designing and implementing management practices and methods. They spark the flame and ensure it keeps burning. But keeping the fire alive—the daily work, adjustments, and improvements—is the responsibility of business teams.
One key issue and also a metric is the utilization of tools related to architecture management. If the licenses for the Enterprise Architecture tool are targeted only to people whose titles include IT and digitalization, you are probably in trouble. The license list must include a purchasing manager, marketing assistant, product designer, sales director and warehouse manager. Of course, it is not enough that the license has been distributed to them, but there must also be logins to the tool. People must be given the model and methods, as well as transparency into the whole.
The quality of architecture is reflected in everyday management
The best measure of the success of an architectural project is the understanding and management of the business people in their area of responsibility. If they themselves are able to form an understanding of why they are having problems and identify the things that need to be changed, the architectural project has been successful.
Naturally, one of the main goals of architectural management is to ensure unified and holistic management and development. However, the whole cannot work unless the individual areas work. The focus must be placed on collaboration and the basics and towards the successes of architectural management.
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