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Supporting position

Architecture is decision-making under uncertainty.

Diagrams and stack choices are the residue of architecture; the work is making and recording trade-offs under uncertainty, optimising for reversibility.

Conventional wisdom

Architecture is the diagrams and the technology stack.

Our position

Architecture is decision-making under uncertainty.

Why we believe it

Diagrams are the residue. The work is making and recording trade-offs you cannot easily reverse — optimising for reversibility, decentralising the deciding.

What we’ve observed

  1. 01Gartner projects ~80% of technical debt will be architectural by 2026; ADRs capture the rationale diagrams omit.

Challenge the thinking

If your architecture function has drifted into diagrams and review boards, the expensive part — the decisions — may be going unmade or unrecorded. Tell us where you land, or push back.

Diagrams, or decisions? →