DevOps Topologies 10 years on: what have we learned about silos, collaboration, and flow? - ShipItCon 2024

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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 ShipItConf, Dublin | 30 August 2024 K26 Image CC BYNC Duncan Rawlinson https://duncan.co/land-of-plenty/

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2 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 3

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Ten years after SODOR and DevOps Topologies, what is holding back lower-performing organizations from improving their IT delivery performance? 4

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10 years on: DOTs and SODOR The cost of tangled software Accelerate metrics + TT for ﬂow Success with fast ﬂow 5

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Decoupling of teams & technology for fast ﬂow Diﬀusing of ideas for learning and alignment 7

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[key point] 8

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10 years on: DevOps Topologies and State of DevOps Reports 9

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10 2013: Epic battles between Dev and Ops

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11 https://blog.matthewskelton.net/2013/10/22/what-team-s tructure-is-right-for-devops-to-ﬂourish/

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12 https://web.devopstopologies.com/

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13 https://conﬂuxhq.com/d evops-topologies

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14 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) 15

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17 Image taken from devopstopologies.com - licensed under CC BY-SA Example: Anti-Type B (DevOps Team Silo)

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18 Image taken from devopstopologies.com - licensed under CC BY-SA Example: Anti-Type E (Rebranded SysAdmin)

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19 Image taken from devopstopologies.com - licensed under CC BY-SA Example: Anti-Type H (Fake SRE)

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20 Image taken from devopstopologies.com - licensed under CC BY-SA Example: Type 1 (Dev and Ops Collaboration)

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21 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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22 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 23 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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24 Image taken from devopstopologies.com - licensed under CC BY-SA Example: Type 5 (DevOps Team with an Expiry Date)

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25 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 26 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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27 0 - Address the dynamic interactions between teams and groups, not just static structure

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28 State of DevOps Reports (SODOR)

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29 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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30 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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31 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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32 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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34 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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35 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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36 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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37 2013 2024+

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38 2013 2024+ Practitioner-led co-evolution

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The cost of tangled software 40

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41 If each engineer in the organization is blocked for 1 hour per working day, how much does this cost?

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42 ● Fully-loaded cost: €160k per year ● 260 paid days per year ● Total of 400 engineers

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43 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 44

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Decoupling: separating things that do not need to be together 45

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Decoupling enables shorter time-to-value 47

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Decoupling enables multiple, independent ﬂows of change, each with its own cadence 48

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49 Multiple, independent ﬂows

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51 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 52

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🔍 Use the 4 Key Metrics from Accelerate and add “blocker count” 53

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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/ 54

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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 58

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Measure ‘wait time’? https://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/lean-methodology/identify-constraints-and-reduce-wait-time-processes/ 59

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Measuring ‘wait time’ is hard Count the number of blocking waits as a proxy ✨ 60

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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 61

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Use 4 key metrics 📊 + “blocker count” to assess and ﬁnd better service & team boundaries for ﬂow 62

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“If we adjusted the service & team boundary here, would it improve the 4 key metrics?” 💓 63

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“If we adjusted the service & team boundary here, reduce the blocker count?” 📉 64

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65 TeamForm teamform.co

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TeamOS 66 teamos.is Disclosure: Matthew Skelton has invested personally in the company behind TeamOS

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Techniques from the Team Topologies community 67

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68 Independent Service Heuristics (ISH)

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69 “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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70 User Needs Mapping (UNM)

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71 “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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72 Team Interaction Modeling (TIM)

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73 “[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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74 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 75

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Case Study JP Morgan 76

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Case Study “How JP Morgan Applied Team Topologies to Improve Flow in a Market Leading Enterprise Platform” 77 https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=y3OL7dv2l48 Fast Flow Conf 💖 https://www.fastﬂowconf.com/

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Case Study 78

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Case Study “60% of dependencies reduced through better team design” 💥 79

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80 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 81

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Case Study “How the Home Oﬃce’s Immigration Technology department reduced its cloud costs by 40%” 82 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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83 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 💡 84

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Use cost metrics as a “ﬁnancial scalpel” 🔪 to split services apart for fast ﬂow 85

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86 3 - Decouple, not coordinate.

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Principles from Team Topologies that suggest certain architectures 93

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94 Multiple, independent ﬂows, fractally

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Respect Conway’s Law (aka ‘sociotechnical mirroring’) 95

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Clear ongoing ownership of services and systems 96

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Stream-aligned teams have end-to-end responsibility for a service (You Build It, You Run It) 97

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Platforms improve ﬂow and reduce extraneous cognitive load 98

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Teams are small (~9), slowly changing, with ‘aligned autonomy’ 99

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Teams are empowered to sense and adjust boundaries to improve ﬂow on a frequent basis 100

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101 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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102 “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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103 “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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104 “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 co pli ate !

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106 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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107 4 - Multiple, loosely-coupled ﬂows of value, with signiﬁcant automation & helper tooling, aware of team cognitive load

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108 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? 109

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110 Multiple, independent ﬂows, fractally

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111 Active diﬀusion of knowledge across team boundaries

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112 Alignment and engagement “High performers favor strategies that create community structures at both low and high levels in the organization...”

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113 internal conferences guilds Communities of Practice lunch & learn public blogs

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114 https://internaltechconf.com/ Internal Tech Conferences Victoria Morgan-Smith and Matthew Skelton

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115 “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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116 https://internaltechconf.com/ Internal Tech Conferences Victoria Morgan-Smith and Matthew Skelton It’s co pli ate !

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117 “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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118 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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119 5 - Fast flow organizations need active knowledge diffusion across flow boundaries to create trust, alignment, and learning

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10 years on: DOTs and SODOR The cost of tangled software Accelerate metrics + TT for ﬂow Success with fast ﬂow 148

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Ten years after SODOR and DevOps Topologies, what is holding back lower-performing organizations from improving their IT delivery performance? 149

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organizing for ﬂow feels alien to many 👾 150

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151 limited mindset shifts

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CxO concerns ignored 152

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‘silver bullet’ re-org 153

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“structure” will ﬁx it 154

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hierarchy & ‘profession’ outweigh value ﬂow 155

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tight coupling in time 156

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no knowledge diﬀusion 157

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limited psych safety 158

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159 success factors

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160 0 - Address the dynamic interactions between teams and groups, not just static structure

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161 1 - Organizing for fast flow helps us to remove inter-team dependencies, improving financial efficiency and time-to-value

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162 2 - Evolving at speed requires a set of core principles and practices, with people trained up and engaged

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163 3 - Decouple, not coordinate.

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164 4 - Multiple, loosely-coupled ﬂows of value, with signiﬁcant automation & helper tooling, aware of team cognitive load

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165 5 - Fast flow organizations need active knowledge diffusion across flow boundaries to create trust, alignment, and learning

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Decoupling of teams & technology for fast ﬂow Diﬀusing of ideas for learning and alignment 166

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Decoupling: teams, software, technology, deployments, data, business concepts, ... 167

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Diﬀusing: principles, practices, learning, techniques, approaches, ... 168

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169 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 Copyright (c) 2017-2024 Conflux group of companies, Team Topologies Ltd, and Holistic Innovation Ltd. All Rights Reserved. The name “Conflux” and the filled C device are Registered Trademarks ® in multiple jurisdictions. The Team Topologies logo is a Registered Trademark ® in multiple jurisdictions.