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Businesses need to be agile to innovate. But most of them find themselves stuck with outdated enterprise architecture (EA) practices — slow, cumbersome, and resistant to change.
I had a great opportunity to interview Hasan Jafri, VP Engineering, Digital Business Solutions at TELUS and learn from his success with modernizing enterprise architecture.
With an extensive background in leading digital transformations at major companies like Scotiabank, Hasan brought his expertise to TELUS, where he built a foundation for engineering excellence through innovative EA practices. He’s a firm believer that EA, when done right, is a critical driver of business growth and innovation.
In this blog post, we’ll explore key strategies from Hasan’s playbook, so you can rethink your approach to EA, unlock engineering excellence, and drive the kind of agility your business needs.
Rethinking Enterprise Architecture for the Digital Age
From Static Blueprints to Agile Principles
Traditional EA often relies on extensive documentation — static blueprints that can quickly become outdated. It’s a common complaint Hasan has heard throughout his career: “When I first took on an enterprise architecture type role, the biggest complaint was it’s too academic, it’s too high-level. They talk about concepts.”
But modern EA requires a shift in mindset. Instead of emphasizing rigid documentation, the focus should be on creating adaptable solutions and embracing agility. Think of your EA as a product, not a document. Zero in on your customer journeys — both internal and external — and how technology can deliver value at every step.
Embracing a Culture of Engineering Excellence
Modernizing EA also means fostering a culture of engineering excellence. Even if you’re leveraging SaaS solutions, you need your engineers to be world-class coders who understand how to build upon those platforms.
As Hasan puts it, “You still want to hold your SaaS providers and any large systems that you’ve purchased accountable for what they’re building and how they’re building it… so you want to build that muscle within your engineering team.”
This means building a strong engineering team that can critically evaluate vendor offerings, ensure code quality, and create custom solutions that meet your specific business needs. Stream-aligned teams, trunk-based development models, and DevOps practices are essential for achieving this level of engineering excellence.
Shifting Left: Building Quality Upfront
Another key principle of modern EA is “shifting left.” This means incorporating security, reliability, and observability from the very beginning of the design phase.
“So security design, reliability by design, privacy by design, observability by design,” says Hasan. “So what you do is you shift everything left and you build it up, design it up front. So it’s built in.”
By building quality into your systems from the start, you can avoid costly rework, reduce technical debt, and minimize operational headaches down the road.
Practical Steps to Modernize Your Enterprise Architecture
Modernizing your EA requires concrete actions. Here are four practical steps you can take:
1. Define Your Customer Journeys
Start by understanding your customers. This applies to both external customers who use your products or services and internal customers who rely on your technology to do their jobs.
“You want to start with customer journeys,” says Hasan. “So you need to find your customer journey, even if it is an internal customer, your salespeople, what’s their journey like in their sales process, right? What’s your operations people, what’s your field support people’s journey like …”
Map out their key processes and identify their pain points. Then, think about how your EA can support those journeys and create a more seamless and efficient experience.
2. Embrace EA as Code
Traditionally, EA has been heavily reliant on documentation. But Hasan advocates for a more agile approach: EA as code.
“How do you code EA? You build software templates. You build SDKs and code snippets,” he explains. “Architecture shouldn’t be building designs. Now, design documents are important because they tell you how to build something. But you want to bring that down to the code level.”
By using software templates, SDKs, and code snippets, you can make your architecture more accessible and actionable for engineers. This helps bridge the gap between EA and engineering, fostering better collaboration and faster implementation.
3. Automate Governance with AI
Governance is an essential part of EA, but it often involves tedious and time-consuming processes like architectural review boards (ARBs). Hasan’s solution? Automate governance with AI. “We leverage AI to build our blueprints. So we’ve automated the blueprint build process,” he says. “We have the system architects go in and pull requests and review the code.”
This approach makes governance more efficient and less intrusive, freeing up your team to focus on building and delivering value.
4. Implement a FinOps Model
Finally, don’t forget about cost optimization. In a cloud-centric world, managing your technology spending is crucial. “And then, lastly, in a digital paradigm in cloud, you need to build a FinOps capability,” advises Hasan.
FinOps (financial operations) helps you track, analyze, and optimize your cloud costs, ensuring that your technology investments are aligned with your business goals and delivering a positive return.
Building a Foundation for Continuous Improvement
Once you’ve rethought your approach to EA and taken practical steps to modernize your practices, you start building a foundation for continuous improvement.
Invest in Tools That Drive Agility
Modernizing your EA requires investing in the right tools. Hasan highlights the critical need for robust tools to support remote work, enhance collaboration and communication, and ensure data privacy and security. These tools are not just “nice-to-haves” but essential components of an agile and innovative EA practice.
By providing your team with the tools they need to work efficiently and securely, you’re enabling them to embrace modern EA principles and deliver value faster.
As we learned from Hasan’s experience, if you build great tools, people will use them — and that’s a powerful driver of adoption and success.
Fostering Collaboration Between EA and Engineering Teams
Silos between EA and engineering teams can hinder progress.
Hasan advocates for a more collaborative approach, where architects are embedded within engineering teams, participating in code reviews and contributing to the development process. This ensures that EA principles are integrated into the actual building of systems.
Open communication, shared goals, and a culture that values collaboration are essential for successful EA modernization.
When EA and engineering teams work together seamlessly, you can achieve greater agility, faster time-to-market, and better business outcomes.
Takeaway
As companies across industries seek to unlock agility and accelerate innovation, modernizing enterprise architecture is no longer a choice, but a necessity.
By rethinking traditional approaches and embracing the strategies outlined in this post, you can build a foundation for engineering excellence and position your business for success in the digital age.
If you found these insights valuable, you wouldn’t want to miss his thoughtful perspectives on the future of technology and digital transformation on the full episode of Behind the Growth. Tune in to dive deeper into his expertise and insights.
Link to podcast
Enterprise Architecture and Engineering Excellence
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