Protect the architecture through delivery.
Embedded architectural governance from specification lock through implementation completion. Monthly retainer. We sit between your board and your implementation partner, defending the design and the benefits case committed to the board against the drift every platform programme produces.
Dimension Six. The one most boards never specify.
In the Six Dimensions of Lead-to-Order Architecture, Governance is the dimension that keeps the other five aligned through technology, organisational, and market change. It is the dimension most exposed on every L1 audit Formalus produces.
Architecture
The integrating layer
Decision rights. Change control. Benefits tracking.
Governance is what binds architectural intent to actual delivery. It is the dimension that decides what counts as a change, who has the authority to approve one, and how a benefit committed in the business case is tracked through to landing in the operating model.
Without it, the specification produced at L2 is a snapshot — a design that goes out of date the moment delivery starts. With it, the specification is enforced through every change request, every partner trade-off, every board update.
L3 is the engagement that installs the governance layer and runs it through delivery, until the architectural intent is operationally live.
How the L3 engagement actually works.
L3 is a monthly retainer that runs concurrent with your implementation programme. Four functions, performed continuously, designed so the architecture cannot drift unseen.
Architecture review
Every change request the implementation partner raises is reviewed against the L2 specification before sign-off. No silent variances.
Decision rights
The decision-rights matrix from L2 is operationalised. Who can approve what — enforced by a third party, not by the partner who benefits from the change.
Benefits tracking
The benefits case the programme was approved against is tracked dimension by dimension. Drift is named when it appears, not at the post-implementation review.
Board readout
Monthly executive update. The architectural state of the programme, in language the board can act on — independent of the partner’s project status report.
Governance is not project management.
The most common reason boards never buy governance is that they assume project management covers it. It does not. Project management protects the schedule. Governance protects the architecture.
Protects schedule, scope, budget.
- Tracks status against the plan
- Manages risks and issues log
- Owned by the implementation partner
- Reports on what the partner is delivering
- Does not enforce architectural integrity
Protects architecture, benefits, design intent.
- Reviews changes against the L2 specification
- Tracks business benefits dimension by dimension
- Owned by the board, run by Formalus
- Reports on the architectural state, independent of partner
- Enforces design intent through delivery
£8K–£15K per month. Tied to programme scale.
The retainer fee is set against the size and complexity of the implementation programme being governed. Typically 1–2% of monthly platform burn — the implementation that L3 is protecting.
When L3 starts: typically at specification lock (end of L2). It runs through implementation completion and stabilisation. Most engagements run 9–18 months, ending when the architecture is operationally live, not when the platform is deployed — those are different milestones.
Architecture Before Technology.
L3 is what keeps the doctrine binding once the partner starts building.
Discuss L3 Retainer →