Article

The Evolving Role of Architecture in Digital Transformation

Posted September 24, 2019 | Leadership | Technology | Amplify
evolving architecture

The authors examine how a limited view of digital transformation impedes organizations from fully benefiting from the new, Agile ways of working. They attribute this failure, fundamentally, to reliance on traditional architectural stacks where multiple teams and products rely on large, shared layers, and a change in a layer to meet the needs of one product may inadvertently break other products. To support a feature team–based organization, each team must have full end-to-end ownership of its stack, which consists of smaller, decoupled parts — microservices — that are loosely bound together. The authors advocate domain-driven design and the atomic design principle as the basis for enabling reuse.

About The Author
Michael Papadopoulos
Michael Papadopoulos is a Cutter Expert, Chief Architect of Arthur D. Little’s (ADL's) UK Digital Problem Solving practice, and a member of ADL's AMP open consulting network. He is passionate about designing the right solutions using smart-stitching approaches, even when elegance and architectural purity are overshadowed by practicality. Mr. Papadopoulos leads the scaling of multidisciplinary organizations by focusing on continuous improvement,… Read More
Olivier Pilot
Olivier Pilot is a Principal at Arthur D. Little (ADL), a member of ADL’s Digital Problem Solving (DPS) and Travel & Transportation (T&T) practices, and a member of ADL’s AMP open consulting network. He focuses on the design and delivery of digitally enabled solutions for intricated problems with specific expertise in design thinking, digital product design and delivery, enterprise architecture, and solution architecture. Mr. Pilot has… Read More
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