Architecture governance for European Commission tax systems
Independent architecture oversight across EU tax and customs programmes — reviewing vendor designs from Oracle and other contractors against the Commission’s next-generation platform roadmap.
- Client
- European Commission · DG TAXUD
- Role
- Software Architect
- Period
- 2018 – 2019
- Stack
- Architecture governance · HLD/LLD review · vendor management
Context
DG TAXUD works to make taxation fair and simpler across the EU — eliminating double taxation, boosting transparency, and helping national tax administrations cooperate against fraud. A wide set of systems and processes supports that mission.
Much of the development is executed by software vendors. The architecture office sits between the Commission’s ambitions and the vendors’ proposals, and TAXUD was transitioning towards a new generation of platforms while that work continued.
The challenge
Ensure the designs vendors propose — including large contracts with Oracle and other development contractors — are architecturally sound and consistent with the roadmap to the next-generation platforms, while staying inside the architecture decision loop.
What we did
-
01
Inside the architecture office
Participation in all architecture meetings and workshops, and review of the decisions taken there.
-
02
Vendor design reviews
High-level and low-level designs from Oracle and other contractors scrutinised, challenged and improved before they became contracts of work.
-
03
Roadmap alignment
Every proposal checked against where TAXUD is heading — the new generation of platforms — not just against the system being built.
-
04
Traceable decisions
Architecture decisions recorded and communicated so project teams could build on them rather than relitigate them.
The outcome
- — Independent architectural oversight over vendor-delivered development.
- — Vendor designs brought into line with the platform transition before build started.
- — An architecture decision process the programme teams could rely on.
Facing a similar integration problem?
Tell us what the landscape looks like today and we will tell you, honestly, what it would take.