I am looking for insights on establishing an Architecture Review Board (ARB) within our organization. As we aim to enhance our architectural governance and ensure alignment with our strategic objectives, we recognize the importance of setting up an effective ARB. To this end, I would greatly appreciate your guidance on the following aspects:       1. Establishing a Charter: What key elements should be included in the ARB        charter to clearly define its purpose, scope, and authority?       2. Member Selection: What criteria should we consider when selecting members for the ARB to ensure a diverse and knowledgeable board?       3. Review Process: Could you share best practices for structuring the review process to ensure thorough and consistent evaluations of architectural proposals?       4. Decision-Making: What are effective methods for making decisions within the ARB, and how can we ensure transparency and accountability?       5. Documentation and Communication: What templates or tools would you recommend for documenting reviews and communicating decisions to stakeholders?      6. Measuring Success: How can we establish criteria for measuring the success and impact of the ARB on our architectural practices? Your expertise and experience in this area would be invaluable to us as we embark on this initiative. Any additional insights or resources you could provide would be greatly appreciated. 

I would offer one insight - which is that the Enterprise Architect as a role, in my opinion, should be a Leadership Team position. It's such a critical role for the organisation that can drive real value with often competing perspectives and legacy situations, and enabling the technology vision and roadmap really takes a voice at the table independent of business/functional areas. Leveraging a technology where you then catalog and map technology decisions, capability models, roadmap status (Decom, Tolterate, Invest etc) - like LeanIX - can then drive accountability and access to information across the organisation.

We have a Technical Archiecture Group (TAG) along with a charter that includes Executive Sponsor, Chair, Secretary, voting members and supporting members. Many of the member are from different technical areas i.e. cyber, engineering, soft dev, end user, BI, risk, and project management.   We have a technical checkoff list for new solutions that we vet against our standards.  This group does not have the authority to say "no", but we address all of our concerns and risks, provide that back to the initiator and rarely do we move forward with something that we don't support.  TAG does not have any budget or project management approval, but a project can not proceed without going to TAG.  

We require the initiator to present their solution and be available to address it to the group. In more complex solutions, we have a technical call with the solutions engineer so we can ask more details.   The group then discusses it and completes a feedback form stating their support, concerns, and anything else that needs to be addressed.    In essence, they vote in a range of 1-5 for the support of the solution/design change.  The TAG chair collects feedback and writes a summary.  This is provided to the initiator.  If there is little or no support, we have additional meeting to discuss this.  All of this process and documentation makes the auditors very happy plus we know what we are introducing into our environment.   

We use a SharePoint site for management of this group.  We meet monthly and have the option for an emergency if needed.  Having a strong and engaged Chair is key as this role requires some administrative skills as well as being a good business partner.  Consistency is key. Organizational buy it is a must.  Hope this was helpful.