Architecture diagrams are everywhere… but they rarely tell the full story.
Boxes and arrows aren’t enough.
If you’ve ever been asked to “present your architecture,” chances are you shared a clean diagram — and then spent 20 minutes explaining what it actually means.
Let's see what the problem is.
Even the best diagrams — I mean C4, UML, and so on — often lack one of the following viewpoints:
- First, the context — meaning, what business problem is this solving?
- Second, the stakeholders — you know... , who cares about this diagram, and what do they want from it?
- And finally, the plan — I would say, how does this connect with phases, deliverables, or timelines?
So, the big question: what do stakeholders usually need?
Well, if you're working with a product owners, chief officers, or business managers, they're not looking for answers to questions like:
How many microservices are deployed?
They’re asking much more relevant questions, such as:
- What value is this architecture enabling?
- What risks are we managing?
- What needs to happen, by when, and who’s involved?
Without this, your architecture looks like an isolated system — not part of a strategy.
After years of running into this gap, I created a simple tool to bridge it. I called it The Architecture Work Canvas.
It's part of a wider initiative: The Quick Technical Architecture Method, or QTAM.
The canvas blends three essential views:
- First, about the context — the canvas focuses on the objective, the scope, and the business value.
- Second, about the stakeholders — it provides insights about who they are and their concerns.
- Finally, and most importantly, what success means for them.
And, you know what? It does all this on a single page.
Moreover, it works well with your existing architecture approaches like ARC42, the C4 Model, as well as with QTAM, of course.
The canvas sparks conversations that lead to alignment — not just documentation.
Not long ago, one dev team I worked with used detailed C4 diagrams. But the project stalled. Why?
No one outside the team understood what success looked like.
After using the canvas, we were able to identify the right stakeholders.
We also clarified the business impact with them.
So, in the end, we aligned our roadmap with the stakeholders’ goals.
And I guess, you already know the result, right?
Fewer rewrites. Faster approvals. Actual buy-in.
To conclude, if you’re tired of having your architecture misunderstood or ignored, try focusing less on drawing better diagrams — and more on framing better conversations.
The Architecture Work Canvas is available on the QTAM website. Also, don’t miss the online training covering the Architecture Work Canvas, the method, and more. You’ll find all details below.
👉 Start here — qtam.morin.io
And you? What’s your experience with architecture diagrams? Do you use C4, arc42, something else — or nothing at all?
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