In technology groups, delivery units, and change initiatives worldwide, there is a certain type of professional who keeps things moving.
They weren’t hired as architects. They don’t have the title. They’ve probably never opened up TOGAF or even have a fuzzy recollection of Zachman.
But they’re still getting the job done – and getting it done solo.
They’re transforming business chaos into tech decisions.
They’re unstick-ing collaboration between silo’d teams.
They’re snapping together broken systems and processes to keep the business moving.
Ring a bell?
If you’re repeatedly bailing out what others break, filling in the holes no one sees, and making things “just work” between people, systems, and teams, then this is your wake-up call:
You’ve been doing enterprise architecture all along. You just didn’t know you had a name for it.
Why You Feel Like You’re Drowning (Hint: It’s Not Just Burnout)
You were hired to lead. To ship. To scale.
Instead, your days are filled with:
- Mediating between two teams developing the same feature with different APIs
- Translating vague executive strategy into half-usable workflows
- Patching together systems that were never designed to collaborate
- Working around decisions made three restructures prior
This isn’t project management. It’s not tech leadership. And for sure as hell isn’t in your job description.
You’re not busy – you’re stuck in an invisible job nobody talks about.
And it’s taking up your bandwidth, your energy, and your impact.
The Accidental Architect
Here’s the thing: every organisation requires architecture. And if it doesn’t have it formally, it still occurs. It just… grows organically in hallway chatter, spreadsheets that are not officially supported, and Slack threads at midnight.
That’s where you come in.
You’re not doing architecture the formal way. You’re doing it in spreadsheets and Google Docs and napkin scribbles. You’re doing it ad-hoc, without a common language, without a system, and without resources.
You are an Accidental Architect.
You weren’t trained for it. You weren’t recruited for it. But you’ve just been doing it because someone had to.
What Does Accidental Architecture Look Like?
You might be an accidental architect if:
- You’re constantly scheming out how things are meant to function, even when no one asked
- You’re the one who gets called upon to spout about how systems or teams are connected
- You can sense the organisational decisions before they hit everyone else
- You’re the unofficial translator among business, design, and engineering
- You’re being asked to “pump up the process” even if it’s not your job
This isn’t leadership.
You’re air traffic control, pilot, and mechanic all rolled into one. You’re designing for scale, deciding rights, and solving workflow defects. And you’ve probably been criticized for not getting it done fast enough, when nobody told you to do it at all.
The Price of Informal Architecture
When architecture happens informally; in silos, ad hoc, and with no shared standards, the entire organisation suffers the consequences:
Friction increases: Teams redo work or develop incompatible solutions
Velocity decreases: Everyone spends time untangling the same types of problems
Morale drops: Decision fatigue, burnout, and internal strife rise
Scale breaks: What works for 10 people fails at 50 or 500
Most firms do not realise they are spending time, money, and talent on the wrong things, not because of poor execution but because they failed to provide the architecture piece.
And folks like you pay for that.
Architecture Is Not a Name. It Is a Discipline
The saga of the ivory tower enterprise architect, PowerPoint pimp, out-of-touch-with-reality artist is long dead. The world wants architects who:
- Work collaboratively, not dictate from above
- Translate across domains and disciplines
- Design systems that scale without losing speed
- Help orgs scale without getting messy
These are skills. Trainable, transferable, tangible skills. And the surprise? You’ve already been doing it.
Now it’s time to level up by design.
What Happens When You Start Owning the Role
When accidental architects become deliberate architects, organisations change.
Alignment speeds up
Tech decisions become traceable
Teams work together instead of competing
Business strategy no longer gets lost in translation
You get your brain (and your calendar) back
More importantly:You stop flying the plane while fixing the engine. You start designing planes that don’t fall apart in the air.
You’re Not Alone, You’re Not Behind
If you’ve been quietly architecting in the dark – welcome. You’re not under-qualified. You’re just under-supported.
That’s why we started Enterprise Schmenterprise. To baptise the work you’ve been doing.To give you language, tools, and frameworks to do it better. To turn accidental architects into intentional ones without the hype, bloat, or BS.
Ready to Name It?
We write every week for people like you. People who’ve been charting bridges from mess to clarity without a roadmap. People who could care less about titles. They just want working systems, and teams that soar.
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Begin designing on purpose.