The architecture team¶
We help Defra make good technology decisions quickly. We set direction, publish guardrails and handrails, run governance, and work alongside delivery teams.
Draft - to be confirmed
Parts of this page, such as names, timings and thresholds, are still being confirmed by the architecture team. Use it as a guide, and check with your solution design authority before relying on the detail.
What we cover¶
| Area | What we do |
|---|---|
| Governance | Run the Technology Governance Board and Technical Design Authority, and support delegated solution design authorities |
| Guardrails | Maintain opinionated good practice that lets teams self-assure - see guardrails |
| Business architecture | Own the business capability model and its mapping to technology |
| Enterprise data architecture | Defra on a page, data standards and authoritative sources |
| Enterprise security architecture | Secure by Design, threat modelling and security risk exceptions |
| Solution architecture | Architects embedded in, or supporting, delivery groups |
The architect in a multidisciplinary team¶
An architect in a delivery team is one of the team, not a reviewer at the end. They:
- work alongside designers, researchers, developers and product managers from discovery onwards
- help the team find what already exists, choose between options and record the decisions as ADRs
- bring the technical constraints into design and research early, and say which can be challenged
- go to show and tells, research playbacks and design critiques, and hear from users directly
- link the team to the platform teams, the solution design authority and the wider Architecture Community
Not every team has its own architect. Teams without one get support from their solution design authority and the architecture team. Designers and researchers can read working with architects for when to involve an architect and what to bring.
Developing as an architect¶
See developing architecture at Defra for the three areas of architecture at Defra - Delivery Architecture, Technical Architecture and Enterprise Architecture - and for architecture roles and skills, the Architecture Community and its All Architecture meetups.
How to reach us¶
- Questions and suggestions about this site: open an issue
- Help designing your service: the Delivery Architecture team at delivery.architecture@defra.gov.uk. They help you architect your service, explain governance requirements and tell you the principal architect for your delivery group - see architecture in the Defra Digital Service Manual
- Defra staff: use the architecture channel on Defra's collaboration tools, or ask your delivery lead to put you in touch
- Delivery partners: contact the architecture team through your Defra engagement lead
- Drop-in sessions: we run regular architecture clinics for any team, including partners - ask your solution design authority for details
How we work¶
- We work in the open: this site, our decisions and our guardrails are public by default
- We engage early and prefer conversations to documents
- We measure ourselves by how quickly teams get to good decisions, not by how many reviews we hold