Organizations that are not learning fast enough cannot design and decide quickly…. and will struggle to respond to their environment.

Why is this important? Because modern organizations are continuously being affected by their environment: their customers, competitors, economic changes, technical innovation, etc. They must be able to constantly listen and evolve their offerings to respond to those and achieve their best outcomes. However, this can only happen if their structures and operating models are optimized for learning and adapting to those environmental conditions. Particularly teams close to the problems can maximize learning and design and decide effectively.

This talk will highlight a fundamental transformation to such structures and operating models. In particular, how to evolve and position Architecture to maximize learning and purposeful designing and decision-making by teams “closer to the problems”. A concrete way to achieve that is to move towards models of “Architecture as an Enabling Team”. Here, Architecture and architects move from being a controlling mechanism to being an enabling one: helping teams maximize learning, designing, and decision-making in their scopes of work.

I will share several examples and strategies to kickstart and accomplish this evolution, one I consider pivotal for modern organizations to achieve a “sustainable fast flow of change” and, with that, be able to respond to the many surprises organizations get from their environment.