Technical Architecture is...

A framework for designing, planning, implementing, and governing the technology used by an institution. Technical architecture is usually a subset of a broader enterprise architecture effort designed to align technology with business goals. Here in ITS though, our goal isn't to establish a large enterprise architecture effort, but rather to create a narrower more targeted process to define and coordinate the technologies that we use to deliver systems to the University of Hawaii.

Our Goals...

• To make intentional decisions regarding the technology we choose to use.
• To achieve higher service quality though the consistent use of technology.
• To reduce unnecessary redundancy without losing our spirit of innovation.
• To create a communication platform for important architectural discussions.

More about our approach

Why bother?

Large organizations that lack a coordinated approach to architecture, often make key technical decisions on the fly or in silos.  The result often is redundant or incompatible systems sprinkled across the organization. ITS is facing a climate of shrinking resources and increasing customer demands.  To ensure we can do the most for our customers within our resource constraints, we need to be intentional about making technical decisions.  Our technical architecture program creates the form and processes to support this type of thoughtful cross-ITS decision making.

Architecture takes time

Developing a mature and useful architecture program takes time.  Most organizations find that their architecture work brings only marginal value in the first year or so, but over time, their architecture program evolves and begins to affect the daily work of people across the organization.  In time, we hope that our architecture proves to be a useful tool to help ensure ITS makes thoughtful and intentional decisions about its technological future.

Our Tools

We are not using any formal architecture framework, but our team is using one tool from the TOGAF architecture methodology (bricks) and one tool we’ve developed for ourselves (principles).