Enterprise Architecture Governance: Standardizing Component Extraction Across 10 Teams

The most expensive mistake an Enterprise Architect can make is assuming that ten independent development teams will spontaneously converge on a unified component library. In reality, without a rigorous framework for enterprise architecture governance standardizing, you don't get a modernized application; you get ten different versions of a "Button" component, zero interoperability, and a massive increase in your technical debt.

With a staggering $3.6 trillion in global technical debt looming over the industry, the "move fast and break things" mentality has matured into "move fast and document nothing." Industry experts recommend that for any modernization effort involving more than three teams, manual component extraction is no longer a viable strategy. It is too slow, too prone to human error, and lacks the consistency required for regulated environments.

Replay changes this dynamic by introducing Visual Reverse Engineering. Instead of manual audits, teams record real user workflows to generate documented React components. This shift from manual interpretation to automated extraction is the cornerstone of modern enterprise architecture governance standardizing.

TL;DR:

• •The Problem: 70% of legacy rewrites fail due to fragmented standards across teams and a 67% lack of documentation.
• •The Solution: Standardizing component extraction using Visual Reverse Engineering to ensure consistency across 10+ teams.
• •The Impact: Reduce manual work from 40 hours per screen to 4 hours, saving 70% of modernization time.
• •Key Tool: Replay provides the Library, Flows, and AI Automation Suite to govern this process at scale.

---

The Governance Gap: Why Modernization Fails at Scale#

According to Replay’s analysis, the average enterprise rewrite timeline spans 18 months, yet most projects exceed this by 50% or more. The bottleneck isn't the coding of new features; it's the extraction and standardization of existing business logic and UI patterns from legacy systems.

When 10 teams work in silos, they encounter the "Documentation Void." Since 67% of legacy systems lack up-to-date documentation, developers are forced to "guess" the intended behavior of a component. This leads to:

1. •Component Duplication: Three different teams building three different "Data Grid" components.
2. •Prop Inconsistency: One team uses
   text

   isActive
   , another uses
   text

   enabled
   , and a third uses
   text

   status='active'
   .
3. •Visual Drift: Slight variations in padding, hex codes, and border radii that break the brand identity.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the process of converting video recordings of legacy user interfaces into production-ready, documented React code and design tokens. By using Replay, architects can ensure that every team is pulling from the same source of truth—the actual running legacy application.

---

Principles of Enterprise Architecture Governance Standardizing#

To manage 10 teams effectively, governance must be baked into the tooling, not just written in a Confluence doc that no one reads. Enterprise architecture governance standardizing requires three pillars: Discovery, Normalization, and Distribution.

1. Centralized Discovery (The "Flows" Layer)#

Before a single line of React is written, the architecture team must map the existing workflows. Using Replay’s "Flows" feature, teams record sessions of the legacy app. This creates a visual inventory of every state, edge case, and validation logic.

2. Normalization (The "Blueprint" Layer)#

Once the visual data is captured, it must be normalized. This is where the AI Automation Suite within Replay excels. It identifies patterns across different recordings—recognizing that the "Search Bar" in the Claims module is functionally identical to the "Search Bar" in the Policy module.

3. Distribution (The "Library" Layer)#

The final pillar of enterprise architecture governance standardizing is the automated generation of a Design System. Instead of teams "requesting" components, the platform generates a shared library that all 10 teams consume.

Learn more about Design System ROI

---

Manual vs. Automated: The Extraction Math#

When scaling across 10 teams (roughly 50-80 developers), the delta between manual extraction and automated Visual Reverse Engineering becomes the difference between project success and total collapse.

---

Technical Implementation: Standardizing the Component Interface#

In an environment focused on enterprise architecture governance standardizing, the output code must follow strict TypeScript definitions. Replay ensures that every extracted component adheres to a pre-defined architectural blueprint.

The "Legacy" Problem: Fragmented Code#

Before standardization, Team A might produce a component that looks like this:

typescript
// Team A's manual interpretation of a legacy "User Card"
interface LegacyUserCardProps {
  user_name: string;
  user_id: number;
  is_active?: boolean;
  on_click: () => void;
}

export const UserCard = ({ user_name, user_id, is_active, on_click }: LegacyUserCardProps) => (
  <div className="card-old-style" onClick={on_click}>
    <h3>{user_name} ({user_id})</h3>
    {is_active && <span>Active</span>}
  </div>
);

The "Replay" Solution: Governed Component Extraction#

By using Replay, the component is extracted with standardized naming conventions, integrated design tokens, and comprehensive documentation based on the actual visual state of the legacy system.

typescript
/**
 * @component UserCard
 * @description Standardized User Identification Card extracted from Legacy CRM.
 * @governance_id ARCH-COMP-0042
 */

import React from 'react';
import { Box, Text, Badge, Button } from '@/components/design-system';

interface UserCardProps {
  /** The full display name of the user */
  displayName: string;
  /** Unique identifier following UUID standards */
  id: string;
  /** Current operational status */
  status: 'active' | 'inactive' | 'pending';
  /** Standardized action handler */
  onSelect: (id: string) => void;
}

export const UserCard: React.FC<UserCardProps> = ({ 
  displayName, 
  id, 
  status, 
  onSelect 
}) => {
  return (
    <Box variant="surface" padding="md" borderRadius="lg">
      <Text variant="heading-sm">{displayName}</Text>
      <Text variant="caption" color="muted">{id}</Text>
      <Badge color={status === 'active' ? 'success' : 'neutral'}>
        {status.toUpperCase()}
      </Badge>
      <Button onClick={() => onSelect(id)} variant="ghost">
        View Details
      </Button>
    </Box>
  );
};

Design System Governance is the set of rules and automated checks that ensure UI components remain consistent, accessible, and performant across multiple product teams.

---

Managing 10 Teams: The Workflow for Enterprise Architecture Governance Standardizing#

To achieve true scale, the Enterprise Architect must move from being a "Gatekeeper" to an "Enabler." This is achieved through a structured four-step workflow powered by Replay.

Step 1: Federated Recording#

Assign each of the 10 teams a specific domain (e.g., Team 1 handles "Authentication," Team 2 handles "Reporting"). Each team uses Replay to record their respective legacy workflows. This ensures 100% coverage of the existing system without overlapping efforts.

Step 2: The Blueprint Review#

Instead of reviewing thousands of lines of code, the EA team reviews the "Blueprints" generated by Replay. This high-level view allows architects to spot inconsistencies in the data model or UI patterns before they are baked into the new React codebase.

Step 3: Automated Library Generation#

Once Blueprints are approved, Replay's AI Automation Suite populates the central Component Library. This library becomes the "Internal NPM" for all 10 teams. Because the components were extracted from the same visual source, they are guaranteed to be compatible.

Step 4: Continuous Synchronization#

Legacy systems aren't static. As small changes occur in the legacy environment, teams can re-record workflows. Replay detects the diffs and suggests updates to the React components, maintaining enterprise architecture governance standardizing even as the project evolves.

Check out our guide on legacy modernization strategies

---

Security and Compliance in Governed Extraction#

For industries like Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government, governance isn't just about code quality—it's about compliance. Manual extraction often leads to "Shadow IT" or insecure coding practices as teams rush to meet deadlines.

According to Replay's analysis, manual rewrites are 4x more likely to introduce security vulnerabilities compared to automated extraction processes that use a governed component library. Replay is built for these high-stakes environments, offering:

• •SOC2 & HIPAA Readiness: Ensuring that the recording and extraction process handles sensitive data according to regulatory standards.
• •On-Premise Deployment: For organizations that cannot use cloud-based AI tools, Replay offers on-premise solutions to keep the extraction process within the corporate firewall.
• •Audit Trails: Every component in the library has a "lineage" showing exactly which legacy screen it was extracted from and who approved the blueprint.

---

Scaling Beyond the First 10 Teams#

Once the framework for enterprise architecture governance standardizing is established, adding an 11th or 12th team becomes a plug-and-play operation. The "Library" is already populated, the "Flows" are documented, and the "Blueprints" are set.

The goal of any Senior Enterprise Architect should be to reduce the "Time to First Commit" for new developers. In a manual environment, a new dev might spend weeks understanding the legacy system. With Replay, they can simply browse the visual flows and start using the standardized components immediately.

Video-to-code is the process of using computer vision and large language models to interpret UI recordings and output functional, styled frontend code.

---

Frequently Asked Questions#

How does Replay ensure that the extracted components follow our internal coding standards?#

Replay uses a "Blueprint" system where Enterprise Architects can define their specific coding standards (e.g., "Use Tailwind CSS," "Strict TypeScript," "Functional Components only"). The AI Automation Suite then uses these rules as a constraint when generating code from the visual recordings. This ensures that enterprise architecture governance standardizing is maintained across all 10 teams.

Can we use Replay if our legacy system is a mainframe or a thick-client desktop app?#

Yes. Since Replay is based on Visual Reverse Engineering, it doesn't matter what the underlying technology of the legacy system is (COBOL, Delphi, VB6, or Java Swing). If it can be displayed on a screen and recorded, Replay can analyze the visual patterns and extract them into modern React components.

What happens if the legacy UI is poorly designed—will Replay just copy bad UX?#

Replay gives you the choice. You can perform a "Lift and Shift" for speed, or you can use the "Blueprint" editor to refactor the UI during the extraction process. Most architects use Replay to capture the logic and structure while applying a modernized Design System (like MUI or a custom internal library) to the output.

How does this fit into our existing CI/CD pipeline?#

Replay integrates with standard Git workflows. The generated components and libraries are pushed to your repositories (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket) just like any other code. The governance happens at the "Extraction" and "Review" phases within the Replay platform before the code ever hits your main branch.

---

Conclusion#

Standardizing component extraction across 10 teams is not a human problem—it's a tooling problem. If you rely on manual documentation and peer reviews, you will fall into the 70% of legacy rewrites that fail. By adopting a strategy centered on enterprise architecture governance standardizing and leveraging Visual Reverse Engineering, you can transform an 18-month nightmare into a streamlined, weeks-long success story.

Stop guessing what's inside your legacy systems. Record it, extract it, and govern it with Replay.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay