# Enterprise Architecture Health Checklist

**Organisation / domain:** _______________  **Date:** _______

> The test running through this list is not whether artefacts exist. It is whether anything
> would be decided differently without them.

## 1. Is the function affecting decisions?

- [ ] **Name three decisions in the last quarter that changed because of architecture input**
- [ ] Architecture is consulted before a supplier is selected, not after
- [ ] Someone can say what the function is accountable for
- [ ] It has a route to say no, and has used it
- [ ] It has approved things quickly — a function that only says no is routed around

> If the three decisions cannot be named, the function is producing documentation. That may be
> useful and it is not architecture.

## 2. Capabilities

- [ ] A capability map exists — **what the organisation does**, not how it is organised
- [ ] Capabilities are stable across reorganisations
- [ ] Each capability maps to the applications supporting it
- [ ] Gaps identified: capabilities with no system, and capabilities with five
- [ ] Business owners recognise their own work in it

## 3. Application portfolio

- [ ] **A complete list exists**, including what teams bought without telling anyone
- [ ] Each application has a named business owner and a technical owner
- [ ] Each is classified: invest / maintain / replace / retire
- [ ] Annual cost known per application
- [ ] Duplicates identified — the same capability in more than one system
- [ ] End-of-support dates recorded and monitored
- [ ] Anything unsupported is on a plan, not on a list

## 4. Data

- [ ] **One system of record per data domain** — customer, product, order, employee
- [ ] Where copies exist, the direction of flow is documented
- [ ] Definitions agreed where they cross boundaries, with a named owner per definition
- [ ] Personal data mapped: where it is, where it goes, how long it stays
- [ ] Retention and deletion actually happen, including in copies and backups

> Two dashboards disagreeing is nearly always two definitions, not two defects.

## 5. Integration

- [ ] Integrations counted — most organisations underestimate by a wide margin
- [ ] **Point-to-point links counted separately**; they grow with the square of the systems
- [ ] Each integration has an owner
- [ ] Failure behaviour known: what happens when each link is down for an hour
- [ ] Undocumented links found — the file drop, the shared folder, the scheduled export

## 6. Standards

- [ ] Standards exist and are **short enough to be read**
- [ ] Each says what problem it prevents
- [ ] Compliance measured, not assumed
- [ ] **Exceptions recorded with an expiry date**, not granted permanently
- [ ] Standards nobody follows are removed or enforced — never left in place ignored

## 7. Technology inventory

- [ ] Languages, frameworks, databases and platforms in use, listed
- [ ] Versions recorded against their support dates
- [ ] **Anything with one person who understands it** — named as a risk
- [ ] New technology has a route in, so it arrives deliberately rather than accidentally
- [ ] Retirement happens — the inventory shrinks sometimes

## 8. Supplier and concentration risk

- [ ] Critical suppliers identified
- [ ] For each: what happens if they fail, are acquired, or change their pricing
- [ ] Exit cost and exit time estimated for the top three
- [ ] Contractual notice periods known and diarised
- [ ] Concentration understood — how much rests on one supplier

## 9. Change

- [ ] The roadmap shows what is being retired, not only what is being built
- [ ] Dependencies between programmes visible
- [ ] Sequencing accounts for shared systems
- [ ] Someone is accountable for the whole, not only for each part

## 10. The honest questions

- [ ] Could a new engineer find out how something works without asking a specific person?
- [ ] Is the architecture documentation current, or current as of a project that ended?
- [ ] **What is the oldest thing in production and who can still change it?**
- [ ] What would a competitor's engineer say after two weeks here?

## Sign-off

| | Name | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Assessed by | | |
| Reviewed with | | |