Blog
Perspectives on architecture, delivery, and working in public service technology. Honest, practical, and occasionally opinionated.
From a sentence to a number
You can fill a requirements catalogue a business analyst would envy, then freeze the moment someone says "now design it". The gap is smaller than it feels. It's the move from a sentence a stakeholder…
From requirements to design
You can run a discovery session, fill a backlog with user stories, and write a requirements catalogue a business analyst would be proud of. Then someone says "great, now design it" and the page stays…
The end of the trusted network
For decades, network security worked like a castle: thick walls, a guarded gate, and the assumption that anyone inside belonged there. That model is finished. Applications have left the data centre,…
The UK Government's Technology Code of Practice: a quiet but powerful piece of policy
The Technology Code of Practice is a set of criteria used to design, build and buy technology in central government. It's owned jointly by the Government Digital Service and the Central Digital and…
Why architecture decisions aren't really technical problems
The biggest mistake new architects make is treating every decision as a technical one. That's understandable. Most of us came from technical roles where the right answer was determined by benchmarks,…