Architectuurboard

Architectuurboard, in a Dutch-speaking IT and enterprise context, refers to a formal governance body responsible for guiding the conception, development, and evolution of an organization’s architecture. It sets architectural principles, approves reference architectures, and maintains an architecture roadmap to ensure consistency, interoperability, and long-term viability of technology choices in alignment with business strategy.

Its responsibilities typically include defining and maintaining standards for data, applications, platforms, and security; evaluating major initiatives and large-scale system changes; documenting architecture decisions and maintaining a decision log; ensuring policy compliance; promoting reuse and reducing architectural duplication; and monitoring conformance across projects. The board acts as an arbiter on high-impact design choices and provides guidance to project teams, vendors, and stakeholders.

Composition commonly features enterprise architects, solution and domain architects, security and data specialists, representatives from IT governance, development, operations, and product management. Decisions are often made by a rotating or representative group, with escalation to senior sponsors when needed. The architectuurboard operates within an overall governance framework that may include an IT steering committee and architecture review processes. It often aligns with established frameworks such as TOGAF or equivalent approaches, using a defined set of principles and a reference architecture to guide decisions.

In practice, the architectuurboard aims to improve consistency, enable reuse of architectural assets, support risk management, and contribute to cost efficiency. It is commonly found in large enterprises, government agencies, and Dutch-speaking organizations seeking centralized governance of technology strategy while preserving project-level autonomy under architectural guidance.