BT Group: Turning Architectural Complexity into Business Buy-In

BT's architecture team had a problem that's more common than it sounds. They were building something genuinely important, Compass, a new compliance and assurance governance platform, but the business couldn't get behind it. Stakeholders were drowning in architecture documents, complex diagrams and slide decks that made perfect sense to tech and architecture teams and no sense to anyone else. What was needed wasn't more content, but a fresh take on the experience of the content that already existed.

I set the vision for what that experience needed to be and led the design team to deliver it. The central design decision was the compass metaphor, a deliberate choice that gave the entire portal a coherent identity, made navigation feel instinctive, and turned an intimidating subject into something people actually wanted to explore. Every screen was structured around the questions real stakeholders were asking: what is this, why does it exist, what will it do for me, and how does it work, answered in plain language, not architecture speak.

The interaction model was where it really came together. Rather than a single linear journey, the portal offered persona-based views letting roles such as a CIO, an engineer, a compliance owner or an architect each find their own path through the same content. The complexity didn't disappear, but it became navigable. Each user could find their version of the truth without wading through everyone else's.

The programme got its buy-in.