Architecture · Coforge · 2026 – present
Architecture guardrails and a review gate for the CIO function
Capability-tower guardrails, CIS/NIST baselines and an architecture review gate for new sites, ODCs, customer onboardings and applications.
Quarterlypublished baseline
CIO · CISO · DPOsponsors
Context
A large, growing IT estate (new sites, offshore delivery centres, customer onboardings and applications) needed consistent standards without slowing the business down.
Approach
- Capability towers, starting with Network. Each tower (network, security, cloud, then applications) gets its own principles, minimum configuration (CIS/NIST), SOPs and reference architecture, with key vendor stacks baselined inside the tower.
- Workshops, not documents. Short, focused workshops per tower with the people who run it, so the standards reflect reality.
- A gate people want to pass through. An architecture review gate for new sites, ODCs, onboardings and apps, sponsored by the CIO, CISO and DPO, with a recurring stakeholder forum.
- Published and audited. A quarterly baseline that internal audit also uses, so there is one version of “good”.
What I’m aiming for
A CIO function that scales with the business: decisions made once, reused many times, and exceptions that are visible rather than invisible.