Over the years, I have been involved in many (sociotechnical) architecture modernization efforts with different clients. One thing I have noticed again and again is that everyone is open to holding a workshop, discussing challenges, and even defining actions for improvement. However, when we leave the workshop and everyone returns to their day-to-day activities, the priority and focus on the modernization efforts tend to drop.

To overcome that “natural inertia”, a few years back, Nick Tune and I started introducing a strategic enabling team, which we called “Architecture Modernization Enabling Team” (or AMET for short). This is an Enabling Team, formed by people involved in the modernization activity, who can help facilitate the important activities of the modernization. Their activities can range from facilitating workshops to helping teams address blockers they can’t solve on their own to improving capabilities essential to the modernization’s success.

I have had the opportunity to apply this pattern with different clients, and this tends to be my “go-to” when approaching more complex modernization efforts. In this talk, I will share the fundamentals of AMETs and introduce you to several examples. I will also share how you may approach the forming and running of AMETs, among other things.