Playing Tetris with Cognitive Load @ Solutions Hamburg Conference, Sep 2023

Autonomous, empowered, cross-functional product teams. Sounds like a dream team, doesn't it? What do we expect from software development teams? Set up CI/CD tools and pipelines. Automate infrastructure. Test and secure *everything*. And, of course, run and monitor its product live? Oh, wait, there's more: they need to understand who their customer:s are, what their expectations are, what causes friction, and what benefit the product brings to the business. Sound familiar? Congratulations, you're already playing Tetris with team cognitive load! Manuel Pais, co-author of the book Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow! shows you how to use topologies to balance and minimize cognitive load in teams.

Transcript

1. TeamTopologies.com @TeamTopologies Manuel Pais Playing Tetris with Cognitive Load
2. Team Topologies 3 Organizing business and technology teams for fast flow Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais IT Revolution Press, 2019 teamtopologies.com/book
3. “innovative tools and concepts for structuring the next generation digital operating model” Charles T. Betz, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research 4
4. 6 Rapid flow of change
5. 7 Rapid feedback from running systems
6. “Great [digital] products emerge from empowered, fully cross-functional teams.” – John Cutler, 2019 9
8. 11 mission
9. Without a clear, stable mission teams are drifting along constant waves of change 12
10. 13 mission
12. Team Cognitive Load
13. Team Cognitive Load Architecture Infrastructure Security
14. coding testing deploying security infrastructure operations CI/CD arch & design
15. coding testing deploying security infrastructure operations CI/CD arch & design building the solution right
16. coding testing deploying security infrastructure operations CI/CD arch & design UX cust satisfaction data science product viability QA
17. coding testing deploying security infrastructure operations CI/CD arch & design UX cust satisfaction biz metrics product viability QA building the right solution
18. the team is the unit of delivery
19. high trust teams ~ 5-8 members
20. Architecture Infrastructure Security Team Cognitive Load
21. UX Data Science Team Cognitive Load
22. Product Viability Design Thinking Customer Satisfaction Team Cognitive Load
25. Team Cognitive Load 36
26. COGNITIVE LOAD: The total amount of mental effort being used in the working memory - John Sweller 37
27. Intrinsic (skills) Extraneous (environment) Germane (domain focus) 42
28. (Intrinsic) ] Extraneous [ Germane 43
29. Fast flow of value doesn’t mean a “feature factory” ! 44
30. Taming Cognitive Load 46 Explicit cognitive load
31. 47 Challenge Cognitive load can’t be measured directly
32. 48 Answer Need to assess the drivers of team cognitive load
33. 49 Answer Team Cognitive Load Drivers 1. Team Characteristics
34. 50 Answer Team Cognitive Load Drivers 1. Team Characteristics 2. Work Characteristics
35. 51 Answer Team Cognitive Load Drivers 1. Team Characteristics 2. Work Characteristics 3. Work Practices & Processes
36. 52 Answer Team Cognitive Load Drivers 1. Team Characteristics 2. Work Characteristics 3. Work Practices & Processes 4. Work Environment & Tools
37. Assess cognitive load drivers 54 github.com/TeamTopologies
38. Taming Cognitive Load 55 Explicit cognitive load Team-sized software
39. Limit the size of software services/products to the cognitive load that the team can handle. 56
42. 60 Each service must be fully owned by a team with enough cognitive capacity to build, run and evolve it.
43. 61 Feature
44. 62 Feature Feature Feature Feature
45. Taming Cognitive Load 63 Explicit cognitive load Team-sized software Adequate team topologies
46. topology the way in which constituent parts are interrelated or arranged Greek: τοπολογία (τόπος == ‘place’) 64
47. 4 fundamental topologies 65 Stream-aligned team
49. 67 Handovers kill flow & feedback
50. 68 We expect most teams to be (value) stream-aligned with end-to-end ownership (if we want fast flow)
51. Team Cognitive Load
52. 4 fundamental topologies 70 Stream-aligned team Enabling team
53. 71 Enabling teams reduce both the learning curve to acquire capabilities and the need for “shared experts” by having them teach and mentor “on the ground”
54. Case Study 72 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOjdXeGp44E
55. Team Cognitive Load
56. 4 fundamental topologies 76 Stream-aligned team Enabling team Platform team
57. 77 Platform teams provide services that reduce cognitive load and accelerate stream-aligned teams to deliver work with substantial autonomy
58. “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 80
59. 83 A platform is a curated experience for its customers
60. ⏳ ⏳ Blocking Non- Blocking
61. Remove barriers to flow: hand-offs, approval gates, manual inspections Replace with self-service APIs, tools, portals, etc. 85
62. 92 “Highly evolved firms use a combination of stream-aligned and platform teams as the most effective way to manage cognitive load at scale”
63. Team Cognitive Load
64. 4 fundamental topologies 94 Stream-aligned team Enabling team Platform team Complicated subsystem team
65. 95 Complicated subsystem teams build and evolve part of a system which requires specialized, PhD kind of knowledge
66. Team Cognitive Load
67. 4 fundamental topologies 97 Flow of change
68. 98 Team Interaction Modes Collaboration: 2 teams working together X-as-a-Service: 1 provides, 1 consumes Facilitating: 1 team helps another
69. 99 Team Interaction Modes Collaboration: 2 teams working together X-as-a-Service: 1 provides, 1 consumes Facilitating: 1 team helps another Why, When, How Long
70. 3 core interaction modes 100 Flow of change X-as-a-Service Facilitating Collaboration
71. Taming Cognitive Load 103 Explicit cognitive load Team-sized software Adequate team topologies
72. 109 Copyright © Team Topologies Ltd 2023. All rights reserved. talks infographics key concepts articles & mini-books adoption case studies
73. 110 Copyright © Team Topologies Ltd 2023. All rights reserved. teamtopologies.com