Elegant Garden AARMElegant Garden PT Training
Consulting · productized offer

Run AARM with the people who created the framework.

The AARM Sprint brings the full cycle to your product in 4 weeks: you walk away with architecture risks prioritized by business criteria, and an architectural story backlog ready for your next planning cycle.

Fixed scope · fixed price · facilitated by the creators of the framework adopted by the SEI / Carnegie Mellon

Who it’s for

Three signs it’s time

Recurring war rooms

Production incidents have become routine and every Friday is a gamble. The team fights fires instead of building, and no one can say which risk blows up next.

Growth the architecture can’t keep up with

The business is about to double (customers, transactions, countries) and there is a quiet suspicion the current platform won’t come along. Suspicion is not a plan.

Pressure for demonstrable governance

Board, audit or regulator want evidence that technical risks are known and managed, and today the answer lives in two people’s heads.

The AARM Sprint

Four weeks, one stage per week

Each week has one main facilitated session, async preparation and consolidation, and a deliverable that stays with you.

Week 1

Product strategy

2.5h · business + product leadership

Vision, mission and the disciplined selection of 3–5 strategic objectives, with the sponsor in the room.

Confirmed strategy canvas
Week 2

Architecture characteristics

3h · technical leadership + product

Objectives translated into prioritized ilities: top 3 of 7, implicit ones and trade-offs named in writing.

Ilities matrix and trade-offs
Week 3

Risk-storming

3.5h · full team (6–12 people)

Silent identification, pinning on the C4 diagrams and impact × probability prioritization.

Prioritized risk map
Week 4

Stories + readout

2.5h + 1h executive

Risks become architectural stories prioritized in the real backlog, with a C-level readout.

Backlog + executive report

Week 0, at no cost: before signing, a qualification meeting defines the target product, checks prerequisites and locks the four dates. The Sprint only starts with a guaranteed calendar: that is how the 4-week deadline holds.

How it works

What each side brings to the table

From Elegant Garden

  • A senior facilitation pair in every session, with facilitator and copilot recording in real time
  • Boards, templates and the full method, licensed for your ongoing internal use
  • Consolidation and synthesis after each session (D+1 email to all participants)
  • A 15–20 page executive report and a live readout presentation to the C-level
  • A cadence recommendation for the next cycles

From your team

  • An executive sponsor present in week 1 and at the readout (non-negotiable)
  • Participant availability across the four scheduled sessions
  • C4 diagrams of the product, or an additional modeling session in week 2 (add-on)
  • One product or value stream per Sprint (focus is part of the method)

Investment

Fixed price. No time-and-materials.

R$ 85k

You buy the outcome, not the hours: closed scope, named deliverables, a 4-week deadline. Remote by default; on-site sessions in São Paulo and C4 modeling available as add-ons. Formal proposal after the qualification meeting.

Week 1 guarantee

If, at the end of the first session, you don’t see value in the method, we cancel the Sprint and you pay only for week 1. The strategy session is where the misalignment between business and technology becomes visible; we trust it enough to sign that.

Honest scope

What the Sprint does not include

Fixed scope is only credible when the boundaries are explicit. Each item below has its own path; we discuss it at the readout, if it makes sense.

After the Sprint

Who sustains the cadence?

The readout ends with a cadence recommendation: recurring risk-storming, periodic ilities reviews. Three paths to sustain it, from lightest to deepest:

Continuous AARM

Recurring facilitation of the cycles by EGS, on a monthly retainer. The method running now, without depending on training internal facilitators.

Enabling Team · Design Authority

An EGS team enabling an internal group for six months, with progressive transfer of facilitation and practice.

In-company training

Training internal facilitators in the framework, with certification, for organizations with an architecture group ready to take over.

Frequently asked questions

Before you ask

Who facilitates the sessions?

A senior facilitator certified in the framework (in the first cohorts, AARM’s own creators), always accompanied by a copilot. The pair format ensures recording and consolidation happen in real time, not afterwards.

Do we need C4 diagrams ready?

Ideally yes: they are the risk-storming map. If they don’t exist, we include a 2h modeling session in week 2 as an add-on and draw the necessary container level together.

Remote or on-site?

The default format is remote, with collaborative boards, which is how the method was designed and calibrated. On-site sessions in São Paulo are available as an add-on; outside SP, with expenses passed through.

Can we run it on two products at once?

Not in the same Sprint: focus on one product or value stream is part of the method. For two products, we run two Sprints, in sequence or in parallel with different pairs.

What happens if the sponsor can’t attend?

We reschedule. The sponsor’s presence in week 1 and at the readout is what guarantees the confirmed objectives carry authority; without it, the Sprint produces a good exercise, not a decision. We would rather move dates than dilute the outcome.

Let’s talk about your product

The qualification meeting (week 0) costs nothing and already produces value: we leave it with the target product defined and the prerequisites checked, whether or not you decide to move forward.

Book week 0