Team Topologies - core agility for the self-steering organization - Digitale Leute Summit

Many organizations lack the core organizational practices to be able to respond flexibly to changing business contexts. Organizations are often “stiff” and inflexible, lacking awareness of what the organization can achieve, and shackled by rigid frameworks that prevent movement and suppleness.

The book Team Topologies points the way to profound changes for the operating model for organizations building and running software-enriched services. At the heart of Team Topologies is the principle of fast flow: multiple ongoing streams of changes to software-enriched services done safely and sustainably.

Team Topologies acts like yoga or pilates for the organization, providing core agility and situational awareness that helps the organization to become more nimble and adaptable, more realistic in terms of capabilities, and ultimately more ready to achieve great things.

Using the Team Topologies patterns organizations can expect to see significant benefits, including:

- Increased business agility - the ability to respond rapidly to changing internal and external conditions
- Increased clarity of purpose at all levels of the organization
- Shared language for navigating all kinds of knowledge-work
- A more harmonious relationship between technology and people
- Increased staff wellbeing and engagement (autonomy, mastery, purpose)

In this talk, Matthew Skelton - co-author of the book Team Topologies - explores some of the benefits of adopting Team Topologies (and fast flow generally) in terms of wider organizational and business goals, and how organizations can become more nimble by adopting the underlying “core agility” practices that Team Topologies provides.

Transcript

1. TeamTopologies.com @TeamTopologies Team Topologies core agility for the self-steering organization Matthew Skelton, co-author of Team Topologies Digitale Leute Summit, Köln, DE| 13 November 2024 Talk 52
2. Team Topologies is the foundation of a humane product-centric operating model 2
3. Matthew Skelton 3 Co-author of the book Team Topologies Holistic Innovation LinkedIn: matthewskelton Mastodon: @matthewskelton@mastodon.social
4. Team Topologies 4 Organizing business and technology teams for fast flow Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais IT Revolution Press, 2019 teamtopologies.com/book
5. 5 “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
6. 6 The core Team Topologies operation will soon be not-for-profit. We’re here to support you, not make $$$ from certifications.
7. Why do so many organizations struggle with being responsive? 7
9. 9 How can you run a marathon, or dance ballet, or climb a rockface if you don’t have core agility?
11. 12 Most organizations do not invest the time in core agility and self-awareness … but then complain that “things are too slow”
12. 13 Major activities need core agility
13. 14 Team Topologies is core agility for the self-steering organization Photo by kike vega on Unsplash
14. Business Agility: the ability to respond rapidly* to changing internal and external conditions (* in hours)
15. 16 Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash Remote-first
16. 17 Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash Speed of change: technology, climate, geopolitical
17. 18 Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash Increased global and local competition
18. What is Team Topologies? 19
19. Team Topologies is the foundation of a humane product-centric operating model 20
20. Team Topologies is a way to navigate the transition from “Project” to “Product” 📅➡📦 21
21. “Team Topologies is a set of coherent patterns to encourage emergent behaviors for fast flow in humane organizations” 22 Matthew Skelton
22. 26 Team Topologies is for navigating knowledge-work
23. 27 Team Topologies is for technology-assisted, empowered teams
24. 28 Team Topologies is for humane, effective organizations
25. 29 Team Topologies can help generate operating models
26. 30 Team Topologies brings clarity of purpose
27. 31 Team Topologies provides continuous adaptation
28. 32 Team Topologies is core agility for the self-steering organization Photo by kike vega on Unsplash
29. What are the key principles informing Team Topologies? 33
30. 40 1 - Focus on flow
31. 41 2 - Ensure there is high trust inside teams
32. 42 3 - Design teams to be persistent (long-lived)
33. 43 4 - Limit team cognitive load
34. 44 5 - Enable rapid, safe changes to apps, data, infrastructure, etc.
35. 45 6 - Ensure that incentives are healthy for 24x7 operation and on-call
36. 46 7 - Encourage teams to be close to their customers - internal and external
37. 47 8 - Acknowledge that it is not possible to predict the behavior of modern complex software ecosystems - design your processes to match
38. 48 9 - Encourage ongoing discovery and innovation at team and product levels
39. 49 10 - Avoid teams waiting on many other teams during delivery
40. 🩺 Sense-check: which of these things feel strange / not relevant / out of place / etc.? 50
41. 51 If each person in the organization is blocked for 1 hour per working day, how much does this cost?
42. 52 • Fully-loaded cost: €160k per year • 260 paid days per year • Total of 400 people
43. 53 Person fully weighted cost per year Person cost per day Hours blocked per 8-hour day Days blocked per 260-day year Cost of blockers per person per year Number of people Total cost of blockers per year €160,000.00 €615.38 1 32.5 €20,000.00 400 €8,000,000.00 €8 million per year 💥
44. Case Study JP Morgan 54
45. Case Study “How JP Morgan Applied Team Topologies to Improve Flow in a Market Leading Enterprise Platform” 55 https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=y3OL7dv2l48 Fast Flow Conf 💖 https://www.fastflowconf.com/
46. Case Study 56
47. Case Study “60% of dependencies reduced through better team design” 🎉 57
48. 58 Engineer fully weighted cost per year Engineer cost per day Hours blocked per 8-hour day Days blocked per 260-day year Cost of blockers per engineer per year Number of engineers Total cost of blockers per year €160,000.00 €615.38 1 32.5 €20,000.00 400 €8,000,000.00 €8 million per year 💥 Remember this? [Note: these are not figures from JP Morgan]
49. 59 Multiple, independent flows, fractally
50. TT principle #1 60 4 team types (well, 3 + 1) grouping Image © 2019 Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais. Used with permission.
51. Each team type (or grouping) has specific expected behaviors 61
52. Each team type (or grouping) has a specific relation to flow and team cognitive load 62
53. TT principle #2 63 3 team interaction modes Image © 2019 Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais. Used with permission.
54. The constraints on interactions provide signals to tell us when boundaries are not good for fast flow 64
55. The constraints on interactions provide signals to tell us about intent/mission, capabilities, skills, strategy, and lots more… 65
56. TT principle #3 66 fast flow
57. Organizing for fast flow means we are happy with: duplication, (a few) different versions, async + eventual consistency, ‘internal marketplace’, etc. 67
58. TT principle #4 68 team cognitive load
59. Using team cognitive load as a key architectural and design principle means we have a humane, compassionate, and realistic workplace 69
60. TT principle #5 70 thinnest viable platform (TVP)
61. TVP avoids ‘platform bloat’ by focusing on enhancing flow and reducing team cognitive load - rather than technology 71
62. TT principle #6 72 empower teams to adjust boundaries to enhance flow
63. Empowering teams to adjust boundaries for flow uses local knowledge for regular incremental gains, avoiding a dreaded ‘Re-org’ every 5 years 73
64. Key success factors for Team Topologies 74
65. 75 Months and years, not weeks
66. Provide time + space + funding for real capability enhancement and behavior change 76
67. 77 “The work is delivered in many small changes that are uncoordinated to enable flow. … Management’s job is to provide context, prioritization and to coordinate across teams. Lending resources if needed across teams to unblock things. … It works well within a high trust culture.” Adrian Cockcroft https://mastodon.social/@adrianco/111174832280576410 Technology strategy advisor, Partner at OrionX.net (ex Amazon Sustainability, AWS, Battery Ventures, Netflix, eBay, Sun Microsystems, CCL)
68. Almost all decisions need to use the twin ‘lenses’ of fast flow and team cognitive load 👓 78
69. Almost ALL roles and teams should be focused on either: 🔀 A flow of change -or- 👐 Supporting flow(s) of change 79
70. 🔀 A flow of change: • Software changes to a service/app • Config changes to COTS software • Onboarding a new employee • Reviewing legal contracts • Installing A/V equipment 80
71. 👐 Supporting flow(s) of change: • An infrastructure platform for cloud services/apps • A data platform for analytics • A wiki or How-To guide • Real-time data for decision-making 81
72. Underlying techniques + social and technical practices 82
73. 83 Re-aligned architecture for information, products, etc.
74. 84 Fast feedback via digital telemetry
75. 85 Good technical practices
76. 86 Team stewardship of products & services
77. 87 Configuration stored in version control
78. 88 Operational transparency
79. 89 designed for automation
80. 90 Continuous testing performance scanning deployment monitoring right-sizing integration
81. 91 Psychological safety
82. 92 Active diffusion of learning across team boundaries
83. Use external expertise to uplift capabilities 93
84. 94 It’s more fun (and effective) together - teams, partners, …
85. 95 The core Team Topologies operation will soon be not-for-profit. We’re here to support you, not make $$$ from certifications.
86. 96 Our network of world-class expert practitioner coaches and partners provides global enablement for adopting Team Topologies Prom o
87. 97 Prom o
88. Team Topologies Academy - https://academy.teamtopologies.com/ 98 Prom o
89. Teamperature - https://www.teamperature.com/ 99 Prom o
90. 100 📦 Package of materials, licenses, ‘train-the-trainer’, guides and other enablement to help with rapid adoption at scale. (2025+) Prom o
91. It’s time to get off the couch 101
93. 104 Team Topologies is core agility for the self-steering organization Photo by kike vega on Unsplash
94. Team Topologies is the foundation of a humane product-centric operating model 105
95. 106 Copyright © Team Topologies Ltd 2021-2024. All rights reserved. teamtopologies.com