# OPS11-BP01 Have a process for continuous improvement
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 Evaluate your workload against internal and external architecture best practices. Conduct frequent, intentional workload reviews. Prioritize improvement opportunities into your software development cadence. 

 **Desired outcome:** 
+  You analyze your workload against architecture best practices frequently. 
+  You give improvement opportunities equal priority to features in your software development process. 

 **Common anti-patterns:** 
+  You have not conducted an architecture review on your workload since it was deployed several years ago. 
+  You give a lower priority to improvement opportunities. Compared to new features, these opportunities stay in the backlog. 
+  There is no standard for implementing modifications to best practices for the organization. 

 **Benefits of establishing this best practice:** 
+  Your workload is kept up-to-date on architecture best practices. 
+  You evolve your workload in an intentional manner. 
+  You can leverage organization best practices to improve all workloads. 
+  You make marginal gains that have a cumulative impact, which drives deeper efficiencies. 

 **Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established:** High 

## Implementation guidance
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 Frequently conduct an architectural review of your workload. Use internal and external best practices, evaluate your workload, and identify improvement opportunities. Prioritize improvement opportunities into your software development cadence. 

### Implementation steps
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1.  Conduct periodic architecture reviews of your production workload with an agreed-upon frequency. Use a documented architectural standard that includes AWS-specific best practices. 

   1.  Use your internally-defined standards for these reviews. If you do not have an internal standard, use the AWS Well-Architected Framework. 

   1.  Use the AWS Well-Architected Tool to create a custom lens of your internal best practices and conduct your architecture review. 

   1.  Contact your AWS Solution Architect or Technical Account Manager to conduct a guided Well-Architected Framework Review of your workload. 

1.  Prioritize improvement opportunities identified during the review into your software development process. 

 **Level of effort for the implementation plan:** Low. You can use the AWS Well-Architected Framework to conduct your yearly architecture review. 

## Resources
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 **Related best practices:** 
+  [OPS11-BP02 Perform post-incident analysis](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/operational-excellence-pillar/ops_evolve_ops_perform_rca_process.html) 
+  [OPS11-BP08 Document and share lessons learned](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/operational-excellence-pillar/ops_evolve_ops_share_lessons_learned.html) 
+  [OPS04 Implement Observability](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/operational-excellence-pillar/ops_evolve_ops_process_cont_imp.html) 

 **Related documents:** 
+  [AWS Well-Architected Tool - Custom lenses](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/userguide/lenses-custom.html) 
+  [AWS Well-Architected Whitepaper - The review process](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/framework/the-review-process.html) 
+  [Customize Well-Architected Reviews using Custom Lenses and the AWS Well-Architected Tool](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/mt/customize-well-architected-reviews-using-custom-lenses-and-the-aws-well-architected-tool/) 
+  [Implementing the AWS Well-Architected Custom Lens lifecycle in your organization](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/implementing-the-aws-well-architected-custom-lens-lifecycle-in-your-organization/) 

 **Related videos:** 
+  [AWS re:Invent 2023 - Scaling AWS Well-Architected best practices across your organization](https://youtu.be/UXtZCoE9qfQ?si=OPATCOY2YAwiF2TS) 

 **Related examples:** 
+  [AWS Well-Architected Tool](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/userguide/intro.html)