Overview of Team Topologies @ Large Insurance Company, Nov 2023

For effective, modern, cloud-connected software systems we need to consciously organize our teams in specific ways. Taking account of socio-technical mirroring (Conway’s Law), we look to match the team structures to the required software architecture, enabling or restricting communication and collaboration for the best outcomes.
This talk will introduce the basics of organization design using Team Topologies, exploring a selection of key team types, and how and when to use them in order to make the development and operation of your software systems as effective as possible. The talk is based on the book Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais including first-hand experience helping companies around the world with the design of their technology teams.
Key takeaways:
1. Why companies using the traditional methods for organizing software teams will fail to deliver
2. The four fundamental team topologies needed for modern software delivery
3. The three team interaction modes that enable fast flow and rapid learning
4. How to address Conway’s Law, cognitive load, and team evolution with Team Topologies

Transcript

1. TeamTopologies.com @TeamTopologies Overview of Team Topologies Organizing business and technology teams for fast flow Large Insurance Company - 08 Nov 2023
2. Manuel Pais 2 Independent IT organizational consultant and trainer LinkedIn instructor on CI/CD LinkedIn: manuelpais
3. Team Topologies 3 Organizing business and technology teams for fast flow Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais IT Revolution Press, 2019 teamtopologies.com/book
4. 4 Rapid flow of change
5. 5 Rapid feedback from running systems
6. Blockers to Flow 6
7. 7 Waiting too long for things to get done?
8. Functional silos 8 Dev UX PMO QA Ops Compliance Functional silos?
9. 9 Software too big for your teams?
10. Unclear value streams? 10
11. 11 Teams pulled in multiple directions?
12. Multiple stakeholders? 12
13. 13 Disengaged teams?
14. 14 Confused about how to change things?
15. 15 Maybe just one more re-org?
16. Instead, we need to talk about… 26
17. 27 Heuristics for Conway’s Law
18. 28 Managing team cognitive load
19. 29 Patterns for team interactions
20. 30 Triggers for change and evolution
21. 32 Heuristics for Conway’s Law
22. Who designs the architecture of the software systems? 33
25. “Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.” – Mel Conway, 1968 36 Conway’s Law
26. HR department acts as accidental architects of the software system 37
29. 40 (reversing) Conway’s Law
30. Design the organisation to mirror the desired architecture (value flow) 41
35. “if the architecture of the system and the architecture of the organization are at odds, the architecture of the organization wins” – Ruth Malan, 2008 46
36. 48 Managing team cognitive load
37. 49 Handovers kill flow
38. 50 Handovers (can) kill flow
40. 52 Remember A team is a stable, jelled, long-lived group of 5-9 people with a shared purposed aligned to a value stream
41. 53 Team-first approach The team is the unit of delivery. Plan, reward, and optimize for the whole team, not individuals.
42. 54 Team-first thinking Design for team cognitive load. Choose & evolve adequate boundaries for team ownership.
43. 55 https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-API-template
44. Fundamental team types Stream-aligned team Enabling team Platform team Complicated subsystem team 56
45. 57 enable stream-aligned teams to deliver work with substantial autonomy and reduced cognitive load Platform Team Purpose
46. “A digital platform is a foundation of self-service APIs, tools, services, knowledge and support which are arranged as a compelling internal product.” – Evan Bottcher, 2018 58
47. Fundamental team types Stream-aligned team Enabling team Platform team Complicated subsystem team 60
48. 61 team of experts to help bridge capability gaps by mentoring and coaching teams “on the ground” Enabling Team Purpose
49. 62 reduce dependencies on experts by teaching rather than executing the work Enabling Team Purpose
50. Fundamental team types Stream-aligned team Enabling team Platform team Complicated subsystem team 63
51. 64 building and maintaining part of a system which requires specialist, hard to gain knowledge Complicated Subsystem Team Purpose
53. 🔍 Track dependencies and separate as “blocking” vs “non-blocking” 66
54. ⏳ ⏳ Blocking Non- Blocking 67
55. ⚠ Compliance mindset shift: Permitting to Enabling 68
56. Team dependencies tracking 69 https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-Dependencies-Tracking
57. 70 Patterns for team interactions
58. “Problems that arise in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a single part.” Russell Ackoff 71
59. 72 Well-defined interactions are key to effective teams
60. Team Interaction Modes Collaboration X-as-a-service Facilitation 73
61. 74 Team Interaction Modes Collaboration: 2 teams working together X-as-a-Service: 1 provides, 1 consumes Facilitating: 1 team helps another
62. 75 Core Interaction Modes Collaboration: 2 teams working together X-as-a-Service: 1 provides, 1 consumes Facilitating: 1 team helps another Why, When, How Long
63. 76 Teams we currently interact with: Team Name Interaction Mode Purpose Duration Test Automation Enabling team Facilitating Understand test automation and data mgmt examples for iOS 2 months (from Mar 30 to May 29, 1 day per week) Monitoring & Telemetry Platform team Collaboration Store and visualize data on product features usage 3 weeks (from Apr 13 to Apr 30, 2h per day) Team API example
64. Team Interaction Patterns A D E C B A is collaborating with C C provides X as a service to B D provides X as a service to B E is facilitating with A to enable new capabilities Indicates the flow of change 77
65. Getting started
66. 81 Identify the kind of teams you currently have
67. 82 Map current teams to fundamental team types
68. 83 Limit cognitive load
69. 84 Use reverse Conway maneuver
70. 85 Define purposeful interactions
71. 86 Evolve team structures over time
72. 87 Use team interactions for organizational sensing
73. Getting started: Team Topologies Download the infographic: https://teamtopologies.com/getting-started 88
74. Industry Examples teamtopologies.com/examples 89
75. What’s next? 90
76. Free Resources 91 teamtopologies.com/resources (links, slides, video) teamtopologies.com/tools (templates, assessments, etc)
77. academy.teamtopologies.com 92