How TasPorts Built a Living Architecture Practice from the Ground Up

From Point-in-Time Snapshots to a Living Architecture

TasPorts manages the port infrastructure and marine services that underpin Tasmania's economy. As the organization’s technology estate has grown in scale and ambition, today spanning over 110 systems across port operations, finance, compliance, and more, so too have the expectations on what the architecture practice needs to deliver.

With major infrastructure projects ahead, such as the nationally significant redevelopment of Macquarie Wharf, TasPorts needed architecture information that could actively support decision-making: live, current, and connected to the systems and initiatives that matter to the business.

Scaling an Architecture Practice to Match a Growing Technology Estate

As is the reality for most organizations at their scale, TasPorts runs a lean architecture function: a focused team of 4 with broad responsibilities across systems, integrations, and data governance in a heavily regulated environment.

As the technology estate evolved, the challenge was one familiar to many organizations at a similar stage of growth: the tools and approaches that were sufficient at an earlier stage of complexity were no longer keeping pace with what the business now needed from them. Exercises to capture application inventory and capabilities could now take six to eight months to complete using spreadsheets. That's a significant investment for a lean team. And once it was done, it started going out of date almost immediately. Without a way to maintain data quality across 30-plus connected systems, it was impossible to reliably answer the questions that mattered most to leadership:

• Which systems are healthy?

• Where are the risks?

• What needs to change, and in what order?

Presenting a meaningful view of technology health to leadership required effort that had begun to outpace the insight it produced.

A Three-Week POC That Usually Takes Months

TasPorts approached the tool selection with the same rigor they bring to infrastructure decisions. Working with IM Systems, an Australian Enterprise Architecture consultancy, they ran a thorough market evaluation across 10 to 12 criteria before choosing Ardoq.

What stood out wasn't the feature list. It was the underlying approach. Ardoq's data-driven model, where architecture is a living, connected record rather than a collection of static diagrams, matched exactly what TasPorts needed. The same insights, visualizations, and reports available to the EA team could be surfaced to executives and domain owners without rebuilding anything. No more heavy lifting for the architects to translate the architecture into a format that leadership could understand.

With IM Systems setting up the base environment and guiding the data-loading process, TasPorts completed a proof of concept in three weeks. That kind of pace is not typical; most POCs take months. The combination of Ardoq's usability and a partner who understood both the tool and the context made the difference.

From there, TasPorts started small: existing collateral on applications and capabilities, built outward from there. Today, 40 to 50 staff participate in routine survey processes to keep data current and accurate. Ardoq has become the system of record for technology governance — tracking what has changed across systems over time, managing design reviews, and recording architecture decisions.

For executive reporting, Ardoq delivers the views that matter most to leadership: capability health charts, business fit versus technical fit assessments, and traffic light summaries of the technology environment. These are the outputs that have drawn the most engagement from senior management and the executive team.

Key Outcomes With Ardoq: Full Tech Assessments in Weeks Instead of Months, No Meetings Required

In a recent assessment covering 30-plus connected systems, what would typically take months using conventional approaches was completed in two weeks, with 70% engagement from system owners. No workshops were scheduled. No wrangling of meeting calendars. Just surveys, a few follow-ups, and a clear picture at the end.

That result reflects a fundamentally different way of working. Ardoq makes it possible for a lean team to maintain architecture quality across 110-plus systems at a level that wouldn’t be achievable any other way. The historical record of what has changed across systems over time, combined with the ability to drive direct engagement with product owners and end users, means the architecture stays useful and trusted rather than becoming shelf-ware.

The formal adoption of Architecture Decision Records has also added genuine governance value: tracking decisions in the platform where the architecture lives, rather than in a separate document repository that nobody revisits. In a regulated environment, that traceability matters.

Looking Forward

As a heavily regulated organization operating in an environment of increasing legislative scrutiny around data and AI, TasPorts is already thinking ahead. The team is looking to explore how Ardoq can support AI governance, providing a structured way to track AI systems, document their purpose, and ensure compliance requirements are visible and auditable.

Data lineage is another area in focus. Tasmanian legislative changes around Personally Identifiable Information management are creating a real need for clarity on where sensitive data lives and how it moves between applications. Ardoq's ability to map high-level data flows between systems makes it a natural fit for this work.

Start Small. Stay Formal. Find a Partner Who Gets It.

For EA teams in regulated industries with lean resources, Brodie's experience at TasPorts offers a practical playbook:

“Start small rather than trying to boil the ocean. Find a key use case and prove the value there first. If formal governance matters to your organization — and in regulated industries, it usually does — tracking architecture decisions over time is one of the most valuable things you can do. And don't underestimate the value of a local partner who knows the tool and the context. That partnership made a real difference to how quickly we got from a blank slate to something genuinely useful.”

- Brodie Hicks, Solutions Architect at TasPorts

About TasPorts

TasPorts is a state-owned company responsible for 10 Tasmanian ports and the Devonport Airport, operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. As an island state, Tasmania relies on shipping, port infrastructure, and port operations to sustain the island’s communities and economy. Each year, 99% of the state’s freight moves through Tasmania’s multi-port network. Working collaboratively, TasPorts works to deliver upon its vision to proudly connect people, products, and solutions for the benefit of all Tasmanians. TasPorts implemented Ardoq with the support of IM Systems, an Australian Enterprise Architecture consultancy and Ardoq partner.