The One-Slide Solution Architect

Greetings, architects of illusion! 🎨
This week, we journey into the land of immaculate slide decks — where arrows align perfectly, cloud icons sparkle, and the One-Slide Solution Architect reigns supreme.

The Main Story: The Slide That Saved the Program

Picture this:
A high-stakes steering committee meeting. The air is thick with uncertainty, and the project’s on fire. Then, from the back of the room, our hero steps forward — laptop glowing, voice steady.

“Don’t worry,” they whisper, “I have the slide.”

The lights dim.
A single PowerPoint slide appears — boxes, arrows, maybe a tasteful gradient.
The audience gasps. The CIO nods. Someone whispers, “It’s beautiful.”

For a fleeting moment, everyone believes that alignment, scalability, and ROI will flow directly from this pixel-perfect masterpiece.
Reality, of course, remains entirely unchanged.

TOGAF to the Rescue (As Usual)

TOGAF reminds us that a view is not the thing itself. A diagram is merely a representation — a guide to shared understanding, not a talisman of truth.

• Architecture Views (per TOGAF) should communicate with stakeholders, not hypnotize them.

• A Repository is where artifacts live — not where reality goes to die.

• And yes, the Architecture Development Method (ADM) still expects us to validate that “slide” against actual requirements, not wishful thinking.

Educational Twist: From Slides to Substance

To escape the cult of the One-Slide Architect:

• Validate your visuals with reality — map them to real systems, processes, and owners.

• Separate communication from confirmation — a clean diagram doesn’t mean the solution works.

• Use architecture views purposefully — not as performance art.

Humor in Diagrams

Share and Connect

Ever built the perfect diagram — only to watch the implementation crumble?
Share your best “One-Slide” war stories below!

Next Week’s Tease

Episode 45: The Great Governance Goose Chase — when every decision needs a committee, and every committee needs another meeting.