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Socio-technical evolution: growing an
architecture and its organization for fast
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ow
Chris Richardson
Founder of Eventuate.io
Founder of the original CloudFoundry.com
Author of POJOs in Action and Microservices Patterns
[email protected]
http://adopt.microservices.io
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pojos
Copyright © 2025. Chris Richardson Consulting, Inc. All rights reserved
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Presentation goal
How to incrementally grow
an application and its
development organization
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About Chris
http://adopt.microservices.io
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About Chris
https://chrisrichardson.net/
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Microservices Patterns, 2nd edition
https://microservices.io/post/architecture/2025/06/26/announcing-meap-microservices-patterns-2nd-edition.html
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Agenda
Introduction to socio-technical architecture
De
fi
ning a socio-technical architecture
Growing a socio-technical architecture
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Socio-technical architecture :
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Fast
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ow for business succe$$ in today’s turbulent (VUCA)
world
Development Production
Continuous stream of small changes, many times a day
Continuous feedback and learning
Users
IT
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Enables
Enables
Process:
Principles
and practices
for fast
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Organization:
Organizational
patterns and
principles for fast
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Fast
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success
triangle
Fast
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ow architecture:
(at scale)
A socio-technical
architecture for fast
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Fast
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ow socio-technical architecture: organization
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Team topologies: organizational patterns and
principles for fast
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Cognitive overload: an obstacle to fast
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Sources:
Inherent complexity
Accidental complexity
Consequences:
Reduces team performance
Impacts mental health: stress,
burnout.
DevEx
Work environment than
minimizes interruptions,
meaningful work, …
Minimize - simplify
environment, automate,
good documentation,
…
Fast feedback
from colleagues,
tools,
deployment
pipeline,
production,
users, …
Feedback
Flow
Cognitive load
Great
https://premium.microservices.io/microservices-rules-4-provide-a-great-developer-experience/
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Fast
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Architecture is multi-dimensional
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Architectural requirements for
fast
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Cognitive alignment - ownership
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Independent teams require loose design-time
coupling
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Independent teams must be able to deploy without
coordination and receive prompt feedback
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Agenda
Introduction to socio-technical architecture
De
fi
ning a socio-technical architecture
Growing a socio-technical architecture
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Decisions: architecture
Monolith
vs.
Microservices
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Decisions: organizations
Understaf
fi
ng => slow delivery
insuf
fi
cient execution capacity
insuf
fi
cient cognitive capacity
Overstaf
fi
ng => slow delivery
Excessive coordination overhead
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https://quotesgram.com/einstein-quotes-on-simplicity/
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Simplest possible socio-technical architecture: buy
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Simplest possible socio-technical architecture: build
Too
sim
ple
for m
ost
applications
(Probably)
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Simplest possible socio-technical architecture:
practical
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Growing workload + cognitive load of existing
system => stresses a socio-technical architecture
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Socio-technical friction: obstacles to fast
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Architecture as a set of design decisions
https://microservices.io/post/architecture/2023/10/16/about-a-service-exists-to-solve-problems.html
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Grow the socio-technical architecture one design
decision at a time
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Organization and architecture must often evolve
together to maintain fast
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Agenda
Introduction to socio-technical architecture
De
fi
ning a socio-technical architecture
Growing a socio-technical architecture
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Socio-technical transformations to reduce friction
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Add team member
Expands execution capacity (person-
hours)
Adds cognitive capacity
Adds missing skills and capabilities
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Split team
“socio-technical mitosis”
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When to split a team: Team size > 15
Coordination overhead within a team ∝ to n × (n – 1)/2 (N = team size), e.g. Architecture
advice process involves more people
Loss of shared understanding of change
Loss of psychological safety
…
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When to split a team: problem domain exceeds
cognitive capacity of an individual
Team members struggle to reason about end-to-end business
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ows
Meetings revolve around clarifying business rules, not implementing them
The same concepts get re-explained differently by different people
Decisions slow because domain knowledge is fragmented
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When to split a team: software has grown too large
Cognitive overload - nobody has a broad understanding of the code base
It doesn’t
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t in a developer’s brain
Members complain about lack of documentation
Team members specialize on different parts of the code base - becomes a team of teams
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Realign with
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Extract service…
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… Extract service
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Adding a platform group
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Example: microservices platforms
https://microservices.io/post/architecture/2025/05/06/microservices-platforms-team-topologies-patterns.html
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Adding an enabling team
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Summary: fast
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ow socio-technical architecture
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Summary: start with simplest socio-technical architecture
and incrementally evolve to maintain fast
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Summary: growth requires loose design-time
coupling
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Summary: transform to eliminate friction
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[email protected]
Questions?
http://adopt.microservices.io https://www.linkedin.com/in/pojos