The Transformation Architect

Connecting penthouse and engine room

Modern architects don’t try to be the smartest people in the room. Instead, they make everyone else smarter. They shun buzzwords in favor of increasing decision discipline, understanding trade-offs, and communicating across organizational levels: they ride the Architect Elevator from the penthouse, where the business strategy is set, to the engine room, where the enabling technologies are implemented.

We upgrade our technology all the time. Perhaps we should also upgrade our architects.

I distilled my experience working for digital disruptors and leading transformations in traditional enterprise IT into advice for architects and IT leaders, so that they can amplify their impact across modern organizations.

Architecting IT Transformation

Large enterprises feel pressure from digital disruptors who serve users’ increased expectations with innovative business models and little legacy. In the inevitable “Digital Transformation”, I see a critical role for architects and CTOs who can combine technical, communication, and organizational acumen. They see more dimensions, love to sketch, and make lemonade from organizational lemons.

BLOG

The digital grass isn’t greener. It isn’t grass.

Posted: Feb 27, 2026

Don’t project your constraints onto others who work differently.

Executive Impact = Logos × Pathos

Posted: Feb 16, 2026

Engage your audience with facts: from structure to patterns to storyline.

Invest Your Political Capital

Posted: Feb 04, 2026

Spend generously but don’t go bankrupt.

The Mighty Metaphor

Posted: Jan 27, 2026

Translating your topic into the audience’s world allows them to think for themselves.

BOOKS

Grow into a more impactful role as enterprise technology architect with the IT Architect bookshelf:

TALKS & CHATS

Watch over 45 talks on my Modern Architect video playlist. Or dive deeper with a 10-part Architect Elevator learning series on the O’Reilly Learning Platform.

Listen to my Podcasts on Beyond Coding, with Neal Ford from ThoughtWorks, Dave Farley’s Engineering Room, Henry’s Tech Lead Journal or Postman’s Breaking Changes.

For the ultimate experience, attend an Architect Elevator Workshop. I will announce a select few workshops for 2026 soon.

GREGOR’S LAW

Observing recurring challenges in organizations led me to formulate my own “law”, which now has its own page.

Excessive complexity is nature’s punishment for organizations that are unable to make decisions.

Popular article series:

Think like an Architect

Famous architects sketch, zoom out, and see shades of gray.

Present like an Architect

Make complex topics stick without sacrificing technical accuracy.

Agile and Architecture

Agile and architecture are friend, not foe.

An Architect's Path

Being an architect isn’t linear but there’s a meaningful path.

CONTACT

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