Why your Target Operating Model needs to be flow-centric - insights from Team Topologies - Project to Product Summit 2024

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. By focusing on fast flow using Team Topologies patterns - especially decoupling and service-centricity - organizations can expect to see significant benefits, including:

- Increased financial efficiency - typically $ millions per year
- Increased end-to-end financial transparency
- Shorter time-to-value
- Better scaling ability without the slowdowns normally found with larger organizations
- Marked improvements in detecting and meeting user needs (or customer needs)
- Increased staff wellbeing and engagement (autonomy, mastery, purpose)
- Greater overall organizational agility

In this talk, Matthew Skelton - CEO at Conflux and Team Topologies and co-author of the book Team Topologies - explores some of the reasons why a focus on fast flow helps with much wider organizational and business goals, together with some of the key principles and practices that need to be part of everyday life in an organization that is set up for fast flow.

A crucial complementary approach to Team Topologies is Adapt Together™️ from Conflux, which uses active knowledge diffusion to create alignment, trust, and engagement across your organization whilst delivering at pace with fast flow. With the Adapt Together approach, we spread good practices and ideas across organizational boundaries without fighting against Conway’s Law and whilst keeping strong, ongoing stewardship of services and products.

Ultimately, using "fast flow" as a key organizing principle also results in more generalized business agility, mostly because we are encouraged to think about decoupling between separate "things" and the real value of what the organization provides. So although it is not the end goal, fast flow certainly helps significantly to help the organization to respond in a nimble manner.

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From a talk at the Project to Product Summit 2024: https://projecttoproductsummit.com/

Transcript

1. Why your Target Operating Model needs to be flow-centric - insights from Team Topologies Matthew Skelton Co-author of ‘Team Topologies’ Originator of Adapt Together™ by Conflux matthewskelton.com
2. Matthew Skelton holistic innovation Originator of Adapt Together™ by Conflux Co-author of Team Topologies matthewskelton.com 3
3. Team Topologies Organizing business and technology teams for fast flow Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais IT Revolution Press, September 2019 Order via stores worldwide: teamtopologies.com/book 4
5. Why your Target Operating Model needs to be flow-centric 6
6. Flow-centric operating models shorten time-to-market, increase customer-responsiveness, reduce coupling, and increase staff engagement 8
7. 9 Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose
8. 10 Clear mission
9. 11 Financial efficiency
10. 12 Growth without slowdown
11. 13 “...using "flow" as a key organizing principle also results in more generalized business agility, mostly because we are encouraged to think about decoupling between separate "things" and the real value of what the organization provides.” Matthew Skelton https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7130519809980559360/
12. 14 First, a bit of background
13. 15 2013: Epic battles between Dev and Ops
14. 16 https://blog.matthewskelton.net/2013/10/22/what-t eam-structure-is-right-for-devops-to-flourish/
15. 17 https://web.devopstopologies.com/
16. 18 https://web.devopstopologies.com/ Used by Netflix, Condé Nast, Accenture, etc. etc.
17. Thanks to Gene Kim and IT Revolution Press (and many other inspiring people) 19
19. Team Topologies provides several things for organizations… 22
20. 23 Language for dealing with flow, boundaries, architecture, dynamics
21. 24 Heuristics (clues) for organizing teams and software
22. 25 Ways for teams to define expectations + close gaps
23. 26 A focus on fast flow as a key driver
24. 27 Deliberate constraints on behaviors
25. [quick overview] 28
26. 29 Stream-aligned team ➔ Long-lived ➔ End-to-end care and evolution of the service ➔ No hand-offs to other teams ➔ Mix of skills (“cross-functional”) ➔ Small: around 8 people
27. 30 Stream-aligned team ➔ Long-lived ➔ End-to-end care and evolution of the service ➔ No hand-offs to other teams ➔ Mix of skills (“cross-functional”) ➔ Small: around 8 people Flow of change
28. 31 Platform grouping
30. 33 Flow of value
31. 34 Cash Concept Flow of value
32. 35 User Need Flow of value
33. 36 Live service Version control Flow of value
34. 37 Flow of value Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team
35. 38 Flow of value Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team 😢
36. 39 Flow of value Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team 😐 Facilitating Enabling team
37. 40 Flow of value Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team 😊 Facilitating Enabling team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS
38. Platform grouping 41 Flow of value Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS XaaS Collaboration UX
39. Platform grouping 42 Flow of value Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS XaaS Stream-aligned team xN
40. Platform grouping 43 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS XaaS Collaboration Stream-aligned team xN ⚠ Team Topologies diagrams are always just “snapshots in time”, never fixed designs
42. The cost of tangled software 45
43. 46 If each person in the organization is blocked for 1 hour per working day, how much does this cost?
44. 47 • Fully-loaded cost: €160k per year • 260 paid days per year • Total of 400 people
45. 48 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 💥
46. JP Morgan 49
47. “How JP Morgan Applied Team Topologies to Improve Flow in a Market Leading Enterprise Platform” 50 https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=y3OL7dv2l48 Fast Flow Conf 💖 https://www.fastflowconf.com/
49. “60% of dependencies reduced through better team design” 💥 52
50. 53 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]
51. Untangling ≃ Decoupling 54
52. Decoupling: separating things that do not need to be together 55
54. Decoupling enables shorter time-to-value 57
55. Decoupling enables multiple, independent flows of value, each with its own cadence 58
56. 59 Multiple, independent flows
57. 60 Multiple, independent flows, fractally
58. Decoupling of teams & technology vs Diffusing of ideas for alignment & engagement 61
59. Decoupling: teams, software, technology, deployments, data, business concepts, ... 62
60. Diffusing: principles, practices, learning, techniques, approaches, ... 63
61. 64 Multiple, independent flows, fractally Diffusion of ideas for alignment
62. DORA metrics & Team Topologies to the rescue! 66
63. 🔍 Use the 4 Key Metrics from Accelerate and add “blocker count” 67
64. Accelerate Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim IT Revolution Press, 2018 Order via stores worldwide: https://itrevolution.com/book/accelerate/ 68
65. 4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’ lead time deployment frequency Mean Time To Restore change fail percentage
66. 4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’ lead time deployment frequency Mean Time To Restore change fail percentage Encourage fast flow
67. 4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’ lead time deployment frequency Mean Time To Restore change fail percentage Encourage operability
68. What % of lead time is actual work? Example: 120 hours / (120+630) x 100 = 16% Flow Efficiency 72
69. Measure ‘wait time’? https://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/lean-methodology/identify-constraints-and-reduce-wait-time-processes/ 73
70. Measuring ‘wait time’ is hard Count the number of blocking waits as a proxy ✨ 74
71. 4 key metrics & ‘blocker count’ lead time deployment frequency Mean Time To Restore change fail percentage ‘blocker count’ as a proxy for flow efficiency 75
72. Use 4 key metrics 📊 + “blocker count” to assess and find better service & team boundaries for flow 76
73. “If we adjusted the service & team boundary here, would it improve the 4 key metrics?” 💓 77
74. “If we adjusted the service & team boundary here, reduce the blocker count?” 📉 78
75. Techniques from the Team Topologies community 79
76. 80 Independent Service Heuristics (ISH)
77. 81 “The Independent Service Heuristics (ISH) are rules-of-thumb (clues) for identifying candidate value streams and domain boundaries by seeing if they could be run as a separate SaaS/cloud product.” https://teamtopologies.com/ish
78. 82 User Needs Mapping (UNM)
79. 83 “User Needs Mapping attempts to capture the first 4 steps of the Wardley Mapping process … for identifying potential team [and service] boundary” https://teamtopologies.com/unm
80. 84 Team Interaction Modeling (TIM)
81. 85 “[Team Interaction Modeling helps] to describe how to re-organize … teams and their interactions to achieve better flow and deliver value faster.” https://teamtopologies.com/tim
83. • Financial advice • Founded 2009 • Consumers & companies • 'Explainable AI' • Increasingly successful 93
84. < 2019: growth x 6 94
85. Mid-2019 HALT! 95
86. September 2019 96
87. Independent Service Heuristics https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Independent-Service-Heuristics Rules-of-thumb for identifying candidate value streams and domain boundaries by seeing if they could be run as a separate SaaS/cloud product. 97
88. 2020: New arch 98
89. “Team Topologies ... has given us the tools we were looking for and have helped us to build a plan and have confidence that we know where we’re going and how to get there.” Richard Marshall, CTO, Wealth Wizards 99
90. Concepts • Stream-aligned: build & run • Boundaries that help flow • Supporting team types: reduce cognitive load on Stream teams 100
91. Results • Clear patterns and language • Framework for design decisions • Confidence in scaling approach 101 https://medium.com/ww-engineering/to-monolith-or-to-microservice-f8c3f967e63c
92. Thanks to: Richard Marshall CTO, Wealth Wizards (to 2021) 102 Further details: https://teamtopologies.com/wealthwizards
93. GOV.UK Home Office 103
94. “How the Home Office’s Immigration Technology department reduced its cloud costs by 40%” 104 https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/how-the-home-offices- immigration-technology-department-reduced-its-cloud-costs-by-40
95. Making service owners accountable for the $ spend for their service helps to clarify service boundaries 💡 106
96. Use cost metrics as a “financial scalpel” 🔪 to split services apart for fast flow 107
97. Architectures for flow 108
98. 110 Multiple, independent flows, fractally
99. Respect Conway’s Law (aka ‘sociotechnical mirroring’) 112
100. Clear ongoing ownership of services and systems 113
101. Stream-aligned teams have end-to-end responsibility for a service (You Build It, You Run It) 114
102. Platforms improve flow and reduce extraneous cognitive load 115
103. Teams are small (~9), slowly changing, with ‘aligned autonomy’ 116
104. Teams are empowered to sense and adjust boundaries to improve flow on a frequent basis 117
105. 118 Flow of value grouping
106. 119 Architecture for fast flow resembles an ecosystem of loosely-coupled independently-viable services with clear boundaries and ownership aligned to the flow of business value.
107. 120 Architecture for fast flow resembles an ecosystem of loosely-coupled independently-viable services with clear boundaries and ownership aligned to the flow of business value.
108. 121 Architecture for fast flow resembles an ecosystem of loosely-coupled independently-viable services with clear boundaries and ownership aligned to the flow of business value.
109. 122 Architecture for fast flow resembles an ecosystem of loosely-coupled independently-viable services with clear boundaries and ownership aligned to the flow of business value.
110. 123 Async messaging
111. 124 Separate data stores
112. 125 Domain-centric services
113. 126 Event-driven, async messaging Separate data stores Domain-centric services
114. 127 Adaptive Systems with Domain-Driven Design, Wardley Mapping, and Team Topologies: Architecture for Flow – 08 February 2025 Susanne Kaiser See https://www.infoq.com/presentations/ddd-wardley- mapping-team-topology/
115. 128 Architecture for fast flow resembles an ecosystem of loosely-coupled independently-viable services with clear boundaries and ownership aligned to the flow of business value.
116. 129 “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)
117. 130 “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) It’s co pli ate !
118. 132 organize for fast flow of value We help product, technology and engineering leaders design high-impact team-of-teams organizations. teamtopologies.com
119. Alignment and engagement for flow 133
120. 134 Multiple, independent flows, fractally
121. If we have clear boundaries for flow, with limited interactions, how do we create alignment? How do we learn from each other at pace? 135
122. 136 Multiple, independent flows, fractally Diffusion of ideas for alignment
123. 137 Active diffusion of knowledge across team boundaries
124. 138 Alignment and engagement “High performers favor strategies that create community structures at both low and high levels in the organization...”
125. 139 internal conferences guilds Communities of Practice lunch & learn public blogs
126. 140 https://internaltechconf.com/ Internal Tech Conferences Victoria Morgan-Smith and Matthew Skelton
127. 141 “This initiative around internal conferences has been the single most effective thing to align business and technology that I have seen in this organization” – Murray Hennessey, CEO, (UK retail co)
128. 142 https://internaltechconf.com/ Internal Tech Conferences Victoria Morgan-Smith and Matthew Skelton It’s co pli ate !
129. 143 “The way that the Conflux crew used their active knowledge diffusion approach to seek out and champion good practices was a real revelation to us at TELUS and helped to shift thinking around how we innovate and share successes.” – Steven Tannock, Director, Architecture (Platform Technology & Tools) at TELUS Digital
130. 144 Thriving organizations, delivering at speed™ Create alignment, trust, and engagement across your organization whilst delivering at pace with fast flow. adapttogether.info
131. Why your Target Operating Model needs to be flow-centric 164
132. 166 Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose
133. 167 Clear mission
134. 168 Financial efficiency
135. 169 Growth without slowdown
136. 170 “...using "flow" as a key organizing principle also results in more generalized business agility, mostly because we are encouraged to think about decoupling between separate "things" and the real value of what the organization provides.” Matthew Skelton https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7130519809980559360/
137. Flow-centric operating models shorten time-to-market, increase customer-responsiveness, reduce coupling, and increase staff engagement 175
138. … but operating safely and humanely at speed needs flow-centric architectures via Team Topologies and flow-centric alignment via Adapt Together™ from Conflux 176
139. Diffusing of ideas for alignment & engagement Decoupling of teams & technology 178
140. 179 The Adapt Together™ approach from Conflux creates alignment, trust, and engagement across your organization whilst delivering at pace with fast flow. adapttogether.info Team Topologies is the leading approach to organizing business and technology teams for fast flow, providing a practical, step-by‑step, adaptive model for organizational design and team interaction. teamtopologies.com
141. thank you 180 matthewskelton.com