As a department of Cambridge University, Cambridge Assessment is a non-profit organisation with 2500 employees managing three world class examination boards that provide assessments for eight million learners each year in 170 countries. I joined Cambridge Assessment in April 2015 after 15 years of Enterprise Architecture and IT Strategy roles in global organisations. 

At Cambridge Assessment we don't have the luxury of the big corporate IT budgets and headcounts, but we do have the challenge of preparing for a new headquarters building, a major migration to SAP, a large estate of mission critical 24x7 systems and an industry that is transitioning to digital delivery of assessments. In the first year we've taken a pragmatic approach to re-establishing the business alignment, business analysis and architecture functions, challenging the perceived wisdoms to focus on key techniques that make a difference.

The title of this session reflects one of the first internal presentations where we made it clear that we needed to challenge the 'best practices' of the last decade to be able to cope with the pace and volume of change. This session will tell the story of my first year, building the team and the journey we have been on. Some of the techniques have worked well, these include a Kanban board as a way to manage architecture team activities, storyboards to engage the organisation, and an education programme to develop internal talent.