Technology Health Check
Most technology audits are commissioned after something has gone wrong, and most staff hear the word as a search for the guilty. This six-part series sets out a different method: a health check that examines systems, processes and controls against agreed criteria and evidence; a gap analysis read across six dimensions; an architecture repository run as a management system; an independent assurance review scaled to the decision; evidence carried into proposals and estimates; and a clear line between a finding and the corrective action management owns. One fictional Cape Town cold-chain logistics firm, Cedarberg Logistics, carries the examples, and every figure is illustrative.
6 articles
- Part 1A technology audit is a system health check, not a search for someone to blameMost organisations commission a technology audit after something has gone wrong, and most staff hear the word audit as a hunt for the guilty. Part 1 of Technology Health Check explains what a useful audit actually examines, how it uses evidence, and why the question it asks is about the system rather than the people.9 min read
- Part 2How to perform a useful architecture gap analysisMost gap analyses are a list of systems the organisation does not yet own, which is why they end in a shopping list. Part 2 of Technology Health Check sets out a method that reads the gap across six dimensions, separates four kinds of gap, and treats missing evidence as a gap in its own right.7 min read
- Part 3The architecture repository is a management system, not a diagram folderMost organisations have an architecture folder. Few have an architecture repository that anyone can trust during an audit or an incident. Part 3 of Technology Health Check explains the difference: a metamodel, owners, review dates, linked decisions, standards and a change process.7 min read
- Part 4What belongs inside an independent technology assurance reviewAn assurance review is commissioned to give a board or investment committee confidence before a big decision. Too often it checks the project plan and stops. Part 4 of Technology Health Check sets out nine domains a useful review covers, how independent it needs to be, and what the board should receive.6 min read
- Part 5Evidence-led audits make better proposals and estimatesMost estimate disputes start with an assumption nobody could trace. Part 5 of Technology Health Check shows how evidence from a health check flows into a request for proposal, a supplier's assumptions and a price, and how it catches the contradictions between architecture, scope, schedule, cost and acceptance before anyone signs.6 min read
- Part 6An audit finding is not a corrective actionA finding says what is wrong and why it matters. A corrective action says what management will do about it. Blurring the two produces reviewers who design their own fixes, root causes nobody proved, and actions closed on a status update. Part 6 of Technology Health Check separates them.6 min read
Working through any of this in your own organisation?
These articles come out of delivery work rather than theory. If the problems in this series look familiar, a short scoping conversation is usually the quickest way to work out what is worth doing first.
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