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DevOps Topologies 10 years on:
what have we learned about silos,
collaboration, and flow?
Matthew Skelton, Conflux - co-author of Team Topologies
DevOpsDays London | 2024-09-27
K26
Image CC BYNC Duncan Rawlinson https://duncan.co/land-of-plenty/
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Matthew Skelton
holistic innovation
Originator of Adapt Together™ by Conflux
Co-author of Team Topologies
matthewskelton.com
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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
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Ten years after SODOR and
DevOps Topologies, what is
holding back lower-performing
organizations from improving
their IT delivery performance?
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10 years on: DOTs and SODOR
The cost of tangled software
Accelerate metrics + TT for flow
Success with fast flow
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Decoupling of teams &
technology for fast flow
Diffusing of ideas for
learning and alignment
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[key point]
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10 years on:
DevOps Topologies and
State of DevOps Reports
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https://legacy.devopsdays.org/events/2010-europe/lightning-talks
Hamburg
2010
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https://speakerdeck.com/matthewskelton/winning-people-to-devops
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2013: Epic battles
between Dev and Ops
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https://blog.matthewskelton.net/2013/10/22/what-team-s
tructure-is-right-for-devops-to-flourish/
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https://web.devopstopologies.com/
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https://confluxhq.com/d
evops-topologies
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https://web.devopstopologies.com/
Used by Netflix, Condé Nast,
Accenture, etc. etc.
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Thanks to Gene Kim
and IT Revolution
Press
(and many other inspiring people)
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Image taken from devopstopologies.com - licensed under CC BY-SA
Example: Anti-Type B (DevOps Team Silo)
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Image taken from devopstopologies.com - licensed under CC BY-SA
Example: Anti-Type E (Rebranded SysAdmin)
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Image taken from devopstopologies.com - licensed under CC BY-SA
Example: Anti-Type H (Fake SRE)
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Image taken from devopstopologies.com - licensed under CC BY-SA
Example: Type 1 (Dev and Ops Collaboration)
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Image taken from devopstopologies.com
- licensed under CC BY-SA
Platform grouping
Stream-aligned team
Collaboration
Flow of value
DevOps Topologies
(2013)
Team Topologies
(2019+)
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Image taken from devopstopologies.com - licensed under CC BY-SA
Example: Type 3 (Ops as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (Platform))
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Stream-aligned team
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Image taken from devopstopologies.com
- licensed under CC BY-SA
Platform grouping
Stream-aligned team
Flow of value
DevOps Topologies
(2013)
Team Topologies
(2019+)
XaaS
XaaS
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Image taken from devopstopologies.com - licensed under CC BY-SA
Example: Type 5 (DevOps Team with an Expiry Date)
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Image taken from devopstopologies.com
- licensed under CC BY-SA
Platform grouping
Stream-aligned team
Flow of value
DevOps Topologies
(2013)
Team Topologies
(2019+)
Facilitating
Enabling
team
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Platform grouping
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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
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0 - Address the dynamic
interactions between teams
and groups, not just static
structure
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State of DevOps Reports
(SODOR)
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State of DevOps reports
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Annual survey of 1000-5000 IT
professionals worldwide using
rigorous statistical methods
2020 2021 2022 2023
https://www.puppet.com/resources/history-of-devops-reports
…
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State of DevOps 2019
“The use of cloud… is
predictive of software delivery
performance and availability.”
“High performers favor
strategies that create
community structures at both
low and high levels in the
organization...”
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State of DevOps 2019
“Heavyweight change approval
processes, such as change
approval boards, negatively
impact speed and stability. In
contrast, having a clearly
understood process for
changes drives speed and
stability, as well as reductions
in burnout.”
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State of DevOps 2019
“We use a structural
equation model (SEM), which
is a predictive model used to
test relationships”
→ Improvements in practices
predict improved
organizational performance
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Team Topologies practices are predictive of
higher organizational performance - SODOR
https://www.puppet.com/resources/state-of-devops-report
“Highly evolved organizations tend to follow the
Team Topologies model”
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Team Topologies ideas are now a key part
of the AWS ‘Well-architected’ guidance
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/devops-guida
nce/oa.std.1-organize-teams-into-distinct-topology-types-to-optimiz
e-the-value-stream.html
“[OA.STD.1] Organize teams into distinct topology types
to optimize the value stream”
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Team Topologies ideas are now a key part
of the Azure ‘Cloud Adoption Framework’
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-adoption-framew
ork/ready/considerations/devops-teams-topologies
“Consider establishing an enabling team that can …
support applications and platforms … ”
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2013 2024+
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2013 2024+
Practitioner-led
co-evolution
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The cost of tangled software
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If each engineer in the
organization is blocked for
1 hour per working day,
how much does this cost?
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● Fully-loaded cost: €160k per year
● 260 paid days per year
● Total of 400 engineers
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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 💥
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Untangling ≃ Decoupling
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Decoupling: separating
things that do not need
to be together
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Decoupling enables
shorter time-to-value
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Decoupling enables
multiple, independent
flows of change, each
with its own cadence
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Multiple, independent flows
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1 - Organizing for fast flow
helps us to remove inter-team
dependencies, improving
financial efficiency and
time-to-value
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Accelerate metrics + TT for flow
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🔍
Use the 4 Key Metrics
from Accelerate
and add “blocker count”
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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/
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4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
lead time
deployment frequency
Mean Time To Restore
change fail percentage
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4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
lead time
deployment frequency
Mean Time To Restore
change fail percentage
Encourage fast flow
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4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
lead time
deployment frequency
Mean Time To Restore
change fail percentage
Encourage operability
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What % of lead time is actual work?
Example: 120 hours / (120+630) x 100 = 16%
Flow Efficiency
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Measure ‘wait time’?
https://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/lean-methodology/identify-constraints-and-reduce-wait-time-processes/ 61
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Measuring ‘wait time’ is hard
Count the number of blocking waits as a proxy ✨
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4 key metrics & ‘blocker count’
lead time
deployment frequency
Mean Time To Restore
change fail percentage
‘blocker count’ as a proxy
for flow efficiency
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Use 4 key metrics 📊 +
“blocker count” to assess
and find better service &
team boundaries for flow
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“If we adjusted the
service & team boundary
here, would it improve
the 4 key metrics?” 💓
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“If we adjusted the
service & team boundary
here, reduce the blocker
count?” 📉
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TeamForm
teamform.co
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TeamOS
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teamos.is
Disclosure: Matthew Skelton has invested
personally in the company behind TeamOS
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Techniques from the
Team Topologies community
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Independent
Service Heuristics
(ISH)
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“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
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User Needs
Mapping (UNM)
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“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
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Team Interaction
Modeling (TIM)
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“[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
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2 - Evolving at speed requires
a set of core principles and
practices, with people trained
up and engaged
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Success with fast flow
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Case Study
JP Morgan
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Case Study
“How JP Morgan Applied Team
Topologies to Improve Flow in a Market
Leading Enterprise Platform”
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https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=y3OL7dv2l48
Fast Flow Conf 💖
https://www.fastflowconf.com/
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Case Study
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Case Study
“60% of dependencies
reduced through better
team design” 💥
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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]
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Case Study
GOV.UK Home Office
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Case Study
“How the Home Office’s Immigration
Technology department reduced its
cloud costs by 40%”
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https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/how-
the-home-offices-immigration-technology-departm
ent-reduced-its-cloud-costs-by-40
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https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/how-the-home-offices-immigration-technology-department-reduced-its-cloud-costs-by-40
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Case Study
Making service owners
accountable for the $
spend for their service
helps to clarify service
boundaries 💡
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Use cost metrics as a
“financial scalpel” 🔪 to
split services apart for
fast flow
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Case Study
ABC Glofox
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Case Study
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confluxhq.com/glofox
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3 - Decouple, not coordinate.
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Principles from
Team Topologies
that suggest certain
architectures
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Multiple, independent flows, fractally
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Respect Conway’s Law
(aka ‘sociotechnical
mirroring’)
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Clear ongoing
ownership of services
and systems
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Stream-aligned teams
have end-to-end
responsibility for a
service (You Build It,
You Run It)
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Platforms improve flow
and reduce extraneous
cognitive load
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Teams are small (~9),
slowly changing, with
‘aligned autonomy’
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Teams are empowered
to sense and adjust
boundaries to improve
flow on a frequent basis
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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.
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“With the explicit platform strategy
[based on Team Topologies], we
simplified upfront planning … for the
whole organization. Defined interaction
models between teams streamlined
execution with just enough
collaboration.”
– Maksim Koutun, Director of Engineering @ Flo Health
teamtopologies.com/flo
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“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)
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“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 compli ate !
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organize for fast flow of value
We help product, technology and engineering leaders
design high-impact team-of-teams organizations.
teamtopologies.com
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4 - Multiple, loosely-coupled
flows of value, with significant
automation & helper tooling,
aware of team cognitive load
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Multiple, independent flows, fractally
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If we have clear boundaries for
flow, with limited interactions,
how do we create alignment?
How do we learn from each
other at pace?
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Multiple, independent flows, fractally
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Active diffusion of knowledge
across team boundaries
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Alignment and engagement
“High performers favor
strategies that create
community structures at both
low and high levels in the
organization...”
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internal conferences
guilds
Communities of Practice
lunch & learn
public blogs
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https://internaltechconf.com/
Internal Tech
Conferences
Victoria Morgan-Smith
and Matthew Skelton
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“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)
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https://internaltechconf.com/
Internal Tech
Conferences
Victoria Morgan-Smith
and Matthew Skelton
It’s compli ate !
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“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
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Thriving organizations, delivering at speed™
Create alignment, trust, and engagement across your
organization whilst delivering at pace with fast flow.
adapttogether.info
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5 - Fast flow organizations
need active knowledge
diffusion across flow
boundaries to create trust,
alignment, and learning
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“But won’t GenAI make all
this irrelevant?”
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nope
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(... but that’s the subject of another talk :) )
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10 years on: DOTs and SODOR
The cost of tangled software
Accelerate metrics + TT for flow
Success with fast flow
154
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Ten years after SODOR and
DevOps Topologies, what is
holding back lower-performing
organizations from improving
their IT delivery performance?
155
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organizing for flow
feels alien to many 👾
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limited mindset shifts
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CxO concerns ignored
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‘silver bullet’ re-org
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“structure” will fix it
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hierarchy & ‘profession’
outweigh value flow
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tight coupling in time
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no knowledge diffusion
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limited psych safety
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success factors
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0 - Address the dynamic
interactions between teams
and groups, not just static
structure
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1 - Organizing for fast flow
helps us to remove inter-team
dependencies, improving
financial efficiency and
time-to-value
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168
2 - Evolving at speed requires
a set of core principles and
practices, with people trained
up and engaged
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169
3 - Decouple, not coordinate.
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170
4 - Multiple, loosely-coupled
flows of value, with significant
automation & helper tooling,
aware of team cognitive load
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5 - Fast flow organizations
need active knowledge
diffusion across flow
boundaries to create trust,
alignment, and learning
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Case Study
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confluxhq.com/glofox
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Decoupling of teams &
technology for fast flow
Diffusing of ideas for
learning and alignment
173
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Decoupling: teams,
software, technology,
deployments, data,
business concepts, ...
174
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Diffusing: principles,
practices, learning,
techniques, approaches, ...
175
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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
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