Instrument first
An organization cannot learn from a process it cannot see. Measures of throughput, exception ageing, abstention and data freshness are the raw material; without them, improvement discussions rely on impressions.
Close the loop through review
Observations become proposals, proposals are evaluated against the agreed acceptance measures, and approved changes are released with a version. The loop is what makes the architecture living, and the review is what keeps it safe.
Make change progressively cheaper
Modularity, contracts and reversible releases exist so that the tenth change costs less than the first. If change is getting harder over time, the architecture is ageing faster than the business, and that is a signal worth acting on.