Architecture & Design
aibizmod delivery
Strategy, implementation, launch, and support with one connected technical team.
What This Service Solves
Identifying the hurdles
Build decisions made without proper architecture produce systems that work in the short term but become progressively harder to maintain, extend, and integrate. APIs built without a contract, databases designed without a schema review, microservices introduced before the team is ready to operate them. The debt from these decisions accumulates silently until it stops a future initiative in its tracks or requires expensive rearchitecture.
- Systems built without upfront architecture that become increasingly expensive to extend
- Integration problems discovered after both systems were built rather than designed for from the start
- Technology choices made without evaluation criteria, leading to regret when the limitations emerge
- No architecture documentation, so knowledge of why decisions were made lives only with the person who made them
Our approach & solution
We provide architecture review and design services at the point in a project where decisions can still be made at low cost — before build begins or at the start of a significant new capability. We produce architecture designs and decision records that development teams can implement against and future architects can understand.
- Solution architecture documents covering system components, data flows, and integration patterns
- Technology evaluation with documented decision rationale against defined selection criteria
- API contract design and data model review before implementation
- Architecture decision records that document the reasoning behind significant technical choices
What This Service Includes
Solution Architecture Design
Solution Architecture Design
Define the component structure, integration patterns, data flows, and technology choices for a new system or significant new capability before development begins.
Data Architecture
Data Architecture
Design data models, database schemas, and data flow patterns for applications requiring careful attention to data structure, integrity, and query performance.
API Design and Contract Review
API Design and Contract Review
Design RESTful or GraphQL API contracts, review proposed API structures for consistency and correctness, and document endpoint specifications for development teams.
Technology Evaluation
Technology Evaluation
Evaluate technology options against documented requirements using structured assessment criteria, producing a recommendation with clear rationale.
Architecture Review
Architecture Review
Review the architecture of an existing or proposed system for security risks, scalability constraints, maintainability concerns, and alignment with requirements.
Architecture Documentation
Architecture Documentation
Produce or update architecture documentation covering system diagrams, component descriptions, data flow maps, and architecture decision records.
How Businesses Use This
Real-world applications across industries — drag or click the cards to explore.
Architecture Design for a New Platform
A SaaS company was building a new product from scratch and wanted an architecture review before development began. We produced a solution architecture document covering the component structure, data model, and API design.
Business Outcomes You Can Expect
Independent Review Before Commitment
An external architecture review provides a check that internal teams are too close to the problem to conduct themselves, catching issues before they are locked in by development effort.
Reduced Technical Debt from Day One
Building to a reviewed architecture reduces the debt accumulated from undocumented shortcuts and local decisions that accumulate into systemic problems over time.
Systems Future Teams Can Understand
Architecture documentation means the reasoning behind significant decisions survives staff turnover, reducing the risk of new team members unknowingly undermining constraints that were put in place for good reasons.
Technology Choices with Documented Rationale
A structured technology evaluation produces a defensible decision and a record of what was considered, preventing repeated reopening of the same decision when the team changes.
Integration Problems Found Before They Are Built
Designing integration patterns before both systems are built prevents the category of problem where two independently correct implementations cannot talk to each other.
Decisions Made at the Right Time
Architecture decisions made before build are cheap to change. The same decisions made after three months of development are expensive. Good architecture work front-loads the hard thinking to the point where it costs least.
Questions Before We Start
A Few Things Clients Usually Ask
Find answers to common questions about Architecture & Design solutions, setup procedures, scoping timelines, and deliverables.
When in a project should architecture work happen?
The ideal point is before significant build work begins — at the point where you have defined requirements but have not yet started implementation. For significant new capabilities being added to existing systems, architecture review should happen at the start of the feature design phase. The further into development an architecture issue is discovered, the more expensive it is to address.
What is an architecture decision record (ADR)?
An architecture decision record is a short document that captures a significant architectural decision — what was decided, why it was chosen over the alternatives, and what the trade-offs accepted were. ADRs are stored with the codebase and give future developers the context to understand why things are the way they are, rather than having to guess from the implementation alone.
Do you review architecture for existing systems as well as new ones?
Yes. Architecture reviews of existing systems — also called technical reviews or architecture assessments — are valuable when you are planning significant extensions, experiencing performance or reliability problems, or preparing for a due diligence process. They produce a current-state assessment with identified risks and a target architecture recommendation.
How detailed does solution architecture documentation need to be?
It needs to be detailed enough that a development team can implement to it without making significant undocumented decisions themselves, but not so detailed that it becomes a maintenance burden as the implementation evolves. We aim for component-level diagrams, data model definitions, API contract specifications, and narrative descriptions of key design decisions — typically a 15 to 30 page document depending on system complexity.