BVSSH 💖 TT - combining Sooner Safer Happier and Team Topologies for healthier, more adaptive organizations

The books ‘Team Topologies’ (TT) and ‘Better Value Sooner Safer Happier’ (BVSSH) are having a huge positive effect worldwide on the sustainable delivery and evolution of software-enriched services. Both TT and BVSSH are based on the same set of key principles: fast flow, humane working, descaling work, empowered teams, rapid feedback, and continuous improvement at all levels of the organization. And both BVSSH and TT encourage the same outcomes: greater agility and adaptability at scale, more rapid delivery with fewer dependencies, happier teams, and better outcomes.
BVSSH focuses on patterns and antipatterns for leaders at all levels in all roles to improve a balanced set of outcomes, whilst TT provides a pattern language for team-based organization dynamics, team interactions, service architecture, and organization evolution. So how can TT and BVSSH be combined to address all these aspects holistically?
This talk explores the ways in which BVSSH and TT can best be combined to organize for outcomes across the whole enterprise. The talk specifically covers:
How to be honest about what your organization is really optimizing for currently
Moving from role-based silos to nested value streams
How to identify value streams using team-friendly tools and practices
Improving flow efficiency by addressing coupling and team interdependencies
Why you will get your value streams wrong the first time and therefore why you need to become good at evolving the stream boundaries
The talk includes details of how organizations such as Saxo Bank, John Deere, USAF, the UK Pensions Regulator, and KPMG Switzerland are using both BVSSH and TT effectively for a healthier, more adaptive approach to building and evolving modern digital services.

Transcript

1. BVSSH 💖 TT: combining Sooner Safer Happier & Team Topologies for healthier, more adaptive organizations Jon Smart and Matthew Skelton BVSSH EMEA/Americas meetup - 24 October 2023
2. Who is speaking? Jon Smart Author: Sooner Safer Happier Matthew Skelton Co-author: Team Topologies
3. What are TT and BVSSH? Why? Real-world examples Patterns and Antipatterns
4. What are TT and BVSSH?
5. Team Topologies is a set of constraints to encourage emergent behaviours for fast flow
6. ➔ 4 team types ➔ 3 team interaction modes ➔ primary design considerations: ◆ fast flow ◆ team cognitive load ◆ thinnest viable platform ◆ empower teams to adjust boundaries to enhance flow
7. A collection of Antipatterns, Patterns & Principles for business agility
8. Focus on Outcomes Better Value Sooner Safer Happier Build the right thing Most value: outcomes over output Soonest time to value: value streams Achieve Big Through Small Think Big, Start Small, Learn Fast ‘S’ curve adoption Invite over Inflict One size does not fit all Intrinsic Motivation. Diffusion of Innovation Leadership behavior will make it or break it Role Model. Psychological Safety. Emergent Mindset. Build the thing right #MVC Minimal Viable Compliance Context sensitive guardrails Create a learning organisation Impediments are not in the path Impediments are the path You’re never done improving Continuous improvement Go slower to go faster Or you’ll go slower
9. Missions aligned: ‘humane’ A movement enabling organisations to achieve better outcomes for all and a more humane world of work. We are on a mission to make work more humane and more effective for everyone via Team Topologies patterns and principles. https://teamtopologies.com/mission https://www.soonersaferhappier.com
10. Themes: emergence, empowering humans, dynamics, sensing, humane
11. Why?
12. Age of Oil & Mass Production Repetitive work. Knowable
13. Age of Digital Unique work. Unknowable 16
14. What are you optimising for? ”Every organisation is perfectly designed to get the results it gets” Arthur W. Jones
15. What do you want to optimise for? Do you know what outcomes you want? Pattern: Focus on Outcomes Are they being measured?
16. Better Value Sooner Safer Happier Antipattern: Agile [Lean, Value Streams…] for Agile [Lean, Value Streams…]’s sake. Agile is a means to an end Sooner Lead Time Throughput Flow Efficiency Happier Customer, Colleagues, Citizens and Climate Better Quality Safer Continuous Compliance Agile not Fragile 20x improvement 3x improvement on average 20x improvement best teams Highest colleague engagement Positive client NPS trend Positive compliance trend Reduced impact radius From 80% reactive to 80% proactive OKRs
18. 4 Antipatterns and Patterns for better business outcomes
19. Antipattern 1: ‘Wall of Water’ top-down inflicted re-org in a Big Bang style
20. The only acceptable change freeze: you are a Disney princess (!)
21. Pattern 1: ‘Pilot and iterate’ start small, experiment, expect multi-year change
22. Antipattern 2: ‘Inflict over Involve’ value streams mandated with no team involvement
23. Pattern 2: ‘Use group insights’ Identify value streams using team-friendly tools and practices
24. Antipattern 3: ‘Hidden Rube Goldberg machine’ no visualization, frantically managing dependencies
25. Pattern 3: ‘Minimise Coupling’ Improve flow efficiency, break dependencies (not manage)
26. Antipattern 4: ‘Determinism’ Aiming to design the ‘perfect’ value streams and ‘perfect’ organization
27. Pattern 4: ‘Evolve Boundaries’ Expect to get boundaries ‘wrong’ iterate, continuously adjust
28. Pilot and iterate Use group insights Minimise coupling Evolve boundaries Focus on outcomes
29. Real-world examples of organizations using BVSSH & TT
30. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE Saxo Bank
31. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE Saxo Bank “... Team Topologies is [really] about architecting for flow” Talk at The DevOps Conference, Copenhagen 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCeNNo1pznE
32. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE Saxo Bank • TT ◦ Team types and interactions ◦ Architecture for flow • BVSSH ◦ Focus on Outcomes ◦ Applying Principles & Patterns Thank you to: Simon Rohrer, Saxo Bank
33. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE GOV.UK The Pensions Regulator
34. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE The Pensions Regulator • TT ◦ User Needs Mapping for boundaries ◦ User-centric platforms • BVSSH ◦ Recognised the antipatterns ◦ Working towards the patterns ◦ Ways of Working for service teams Thank you to: Andy Young and Matt Doherty
35. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE John Deere
36. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE Talk at DOES: https://videos.itrevolution.com/watch/778295505/
37. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE John Deere • TT ◦ Team types ◦ Platform principles • BVSSH ◦ Focus on the outcomes ◦ Measures (flow, happiness, quality, …) ◦ Applying Principles & Patterns Thank you to: Amy Willard and Matt Ring
38. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE USAF A USAF program office
39. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE A USAF program office • TT ◦ TT book given to all program heads ◦ A common language and mental model across Civilian, Military, Contractors • BVSSH ◦ Guideposts: Antipatterns to avoid ◦ Focus on Outcomes via OKRs Thank you to: [Leader at USAF Program Office]
40. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE Alef Education
41. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE Alef Education • TT ◦ Reduce dependencies via team design ◦ Team cognitive load as a key principle • BVSSH ◦ Focus on Outcomes via OKRs ◦ Team health, quality, compliance ◦ Applying Patterns Thank you to: Amjad Khan, CTO at Alef Education
42. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE KPMG Switzerland
43. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE KPMG Switzerland 47 Talk at DOES: https://videos.itrevolution.com/watch/830906860/
44. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE KPMG IT Switzerland • TT ◦ Organized in business-aligned portfolios ◦ Platform-as-a-Product practices • BVSSH ◦ Central to overall approach ◦ Focus on Outcomes ◦ Applying Principles & Patterns ◦ Ground-up change with communities Thank you to: Marcelo Sousa Ancelmo and Dinkar Gupta
45. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE Adevinta
46. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE Adevinta 4 Key Metrics for all changes
47. INDUSTRY EXAMPLE Adevinta • TT ◦ Common language and terminology ◦ Platforms: enhance flow, reduce TCL • BVSSH ◦ Focus on flow efficiency ◦ Assess team happiness via Autonomy, Mastery Purpose, then SaaS tool Thank you to: Alejandro Moleiro and Alex Lundhorst
48. Summary
49. Pilot and iterate Use group insights Minimise coupling Evolve boundaries Focus on outcomes
50. Themes: emergence, empowering humans, dynamics, sensing, humane 54
51. Team Topologies is a set of constraints to encourage emergent behaviours for fast flow
52. A collection of Antipatterns, Patterns & Principles for business agility
53. Enjoy the journey! (and let us know how you get on!)
54. Thank you! Sooner Safer Happier (BVSSH) soonersaferhappier.com Team Topologies (TT) teamtopologies.com Copyright © 2023 Sooner Safer Happier Limited and Team Topologies Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
55. This slide intentionally left blank
56. Any more examples? [Ask this verbally without putting this slide on the screen]
57. [end]