Architecture reviews produce one of two things: a document that gets filed and forgotten, or a prioritized set of decisions that changes how the team builds for the next two years.
A prioritized list of the decisions costing your team velocity, reliability, or future flexibility — and a clear recommendation on each. The output: inventory of current architecture decisions, evaluation against scale and requirements, prioritized list of what to change/keep/monitor, and a decision log explaining why things are the way they are.
Step 1: document the current state — most architecture documentation is wrong, describing an earlier version of the system. Step 2: map against real requirements — current load, projected load in 12 months, the product roadmap. Step 3: identify the decisions that are costing you. Step 4: prioritize by impact and cost to fix.
A monolith that makes independent deployments impossible. A database that has become the integration point for too many services. Authentication built for 1,000 users that blocks features needed at 100,000 users. Logging that does not capture what engineers need when something breaks at 2 a.m.
Do not start fixing things during the review. Finish the review, make explicit decisions about priority, assign owners, and then execute.
Axented runs software architecture reviews as part of our IT Consulting practice. → axented.com/it-consulting
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