From Fragile to Antifragile Internal Platforms

Internal platforms are generally understood as a necessity in most organizations today. However, results are often underwhelming, and the investment becomes hard to measure or justify. This makes internal platforms fragile and susceptible to economic downturns, changes in funding models, or leadership focus.

So, what is needed to make internal platforms antifragile?

“Antifragility is a property of systems in which they increase in capability to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures.”

Of course, the platform as a product approach is critical to help focus and prioritize (internal) customer needs. Continuously understanding the platform audience, building trust, and reducing blind spots are required to thrive.

However, sustainable platforms need to be able to withstand financial shocks as well. We need to deal with the reality that (end customer) products (usually) have clear revenue and unclear costs, while internal platforms (usually) have clear costs and unclear revenue. How do we avoid naïve/biased approaches to demonstrate platform value that overlooks the costs? How do we show the value perceived by decision-makers who might be sitting two or three degrees away in the organization?

Antifragile internal platforms grow on trust and 360º transparency to survive the inevitable stressors, failures, and misunderstandings. Chances are that mandates, blind standardization, and fuzzy “productivity” goals, among other issues, are eroding the trust foundations needed for platform sustainability in your organization.

Transcript

1. TeamTopologies.com @TeamTopologies From Fragile to Antifragile Internal Platforms Manuel Pais co-author of Team Topologies PlatformCon - 10-14 June 2024 @manupaisable
2. 2 A product has clear revenue and unclear costs (usually)
3. 3 A platform (as a product) has clear costs and unclear revenue (usually)
4. 4 clarify platform value (and product costs) Photo by Piret Ilver on Unsplash
5. 5 A valuable platform reduces the cognitive load of stream-aligned teams.
6. teamperature.com
7. 7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwaRKcjkAAo
8. 8 The platform acts as an engine for fast flow by increasing capacity & speed of engineering teams
9. 9 Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
10. 10 Establishing solid platform engineering is a journey, requires long term funding.
11. 11 https://financialdesignstudio.com/understanding-stock-market-and-economic-cycles
12. 12 Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash Fragile platforms
13. “ Antifragility is a property of systems in which they increase in capability to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures.” Nassim Taleb 13
14. 14 Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash Stressor #1: Unhappy internal customers
15. 15 Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash Stressor #1: Unhappy internal customers Stressor #2: Hard to quantify business impact
16. 16 Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash Stressor #1: Unhappy customers Stressor #2: Hard to quantify business impact Stressor #3: Decision makers unaware of platform value
17. Four pillars for platform sustainability 17
18. 18 1 Trusted platform Platform (services and team s) are trusted by product team s 2 Shared success stories Successes using the platform need to be shared w idely (qualitative value) 3 Internal confidence M etrics on platform adoption, user satisfaction, reliability 4 External confidence P&L m etrics around ROI, cost (control), tim e to m arket, flow
19. 19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwaRKcjkAAo
20. 20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwaRKcjkAAo BIZ LANGUAGE
22. 22 • teams onboard the platform • applications using the platform • traffic served by the platform • ... Adoption Metrics
23. 23 • teams onboard the platform • applications using the platform • traffic served by the platform • revenue served through platform services 👀👀👀 Adoption Metrics
25. 25 • new engineers shipping to production on week 1 Shared Success Stories
26. 26 • new engineers shipping to production on week 1 • reduced cloud costs by 10% across services thanks to cheaper instances 👀👀👀 Shared Success Stories
27. 27 Focus on the “last mile” of platform as a product: measure generated value.
28. 28 Understand business cycles and incentives for funding.
29. 29 Show past ROI and (forecast) future value of platform.
30. “ transforming internal platforms from mere technical solutions into strategic assets, fostering a collective understanding and appreciation across stakeholders” Sridhar Kotagiri & Ajay Chankramath 30 Measuring the Value of Your Internal Developer Platform Investments
31. 31 Growing Internal Platforms as Engines for Fast Flow (1-day training)
32. 32 Copyright © Team Topologies Ltd 2024. All rights reserved. teamtopologies.com/ platform-engineering “Platform Engineering as a Way of Thinking and Team-of-Teams Design”