The fast flow organization - using Team Topologies outside of IT and software - Conflux - FastFlowConf 2023

Slide 1

Slide 1 text

The fast ﬂow organization - using Team Topologies outside of IT and software Matthew Skelton, Conﬂux - co-author of Team Topologies FastFlowConf, London | 25 May 2023

Slide 2

Slide 2 text

2 FastFlowConf is the ﬁrst public event of its kind to focus on the approach and methodologies described in Team Topologies, by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais. Our mission is to bring together practitioners, experts and enthusiastic beginners to share knowledge and ideas, as well as to grow the community.

Slide 3

Slide 3 text

3 FastFlowConf is the ﬁrst public event of its kind to focus on the approach and methodologies described in Team Topologies, by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais. Our mission is to bring together practitioners, experts and enthusiastic beginners to share knowledge and ideas, as well as to grow the community. 🥰

Slide 4

Slide 4 text

Photo goes here Matthew Skelton Founder at Conﬂux Co-author of Team Topologies LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/matthewskelton Mastodon: mastodon.social/@matthewskelton 4

Slide 5

Slide 5 text

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 5

Slide 6

Slide 6 text

Slide 7

Slide 7 text

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. 7

Slide 8

Slide 8 text

Slide 9

Slide 9 text

What I have learned about TT Team Topologies outside of IT What is going on?! Summary 9

Slide 10

Slide 10 text

What I have learned about Team Topologies since publication in 2019 10

Slide 11

Slide 11 text

Team Topologies is way more disruptive and useful than we ever imagined … but 🤷 #sorrynotsorry 11

Slide 12

Slide 12 text

Team Topologies provides several things for organizations… 12

Slide 13

Slide 13 text

13 Language for dealing with ﬂow, boundaries, architecture, dynamics

Slide 14

Slide 14 text

14 Heuristics (clues) for organizing teams and software

Slide 15

Slide 15 text

15 Ways for teams to deﬁne expectations + close gaps

Slide 16

Slide 16 text

16 A focus on fast ﬂow as a key driver

Slide 17

Slide 17 text

17 Deliberate constraints on behaviors

Slide 18

Slide 18 text

18 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/matthewskelton_tea mtopologies-activity-7009449368537726976-biXt “Team Topologies is … a set of constraints to encourage emergent behaviours.”

Slide 19

Slide 19 text

[quick overview] 19

Slide 20

Slide 20 text

20 Stream-aligned team ➔ Long-lived ➔ End-to-end care and evolution of the service ➔ No hand-oﬀs to other teams ➔ Mix of skills (“cross-functional”) ➔ Small: around 8 people

Slide 21

Slide 21 text

21 Stream-aligned team ➔ Long-lived ➔ End-to-end care and evolution of the service ➔ No hand-oﬀs to other teams ➔ Mix of skills (“cross-functional”) ➔ Small: around 8 people Flow of change

Slide 22

Slide 22 text

22 Platform grouping

Slide 23

Slide 23 text

Slide 24

Slide 24 text

24 Flow of change

Slide 25

Slide 25 text

25 Cash Concept Flow of change

Slide 26

Slide 26 text

26 User Need Flow of change

Slide 27

Slide 27 text

27 Live service Version control Flow of change

Slide 28

Slide 28 text

28 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team

Slide 29

Slide 29 text

29 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team 😢

Slide 30

Slide 30 text

30 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team 😐 Facilitating Enabling team

Slide 31

Slide 31 text

31 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team 😊 Facilitating Enabling team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS

Slide 32

Slide 32 text

Platform grouping 32 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS XaaS Collaboration UX

Slide 33

Slide 33 text

Platform grouping 33 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS XaaS Stream-aligned team xN

Slide 34

Slide 34 text

Platform grouping 34 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

Slide 35

Slide 35 text

Slide 36

Slide 36 text

ﬂow-centric roles 36

Slide 37

Slide 37 text

Almost all decisions need to use the twin ‘lenses’ of fast ﬂow and team cognitive load 37

Slide 38

Slide 38 text

Team Topologies indicates: Almost ALL roles and teams should be focused on either: 🔀 A ﬂow of change -or- 👐 Supporting ﬂow(s) of change 38

Slide 39

Slide 39 text

🔀 A ﬂow of change: ● Software changes to a service/app ● Conﬁg changes to COTS software ● Onboarding a new employee ● Reviewing legal contracts ● Installing A/V equipment 39

Slide 40

Slide 40 text

👐 Supporting ﬂow(s) of change: ● An infrastructure platform for cloud services/apps ● A data platform for analytics ● A wiki or How-To guide ● Real-time data for decision-making 40

Slide 41

Slide 41 text

41 Continuously ‘untangle’ business concepts

Slide 42

Slide 42 text

42 Find and adjust team & system boundaries for ﬂow

Slide 43

Slide 43 text

43 Minimize hand-oﬀs

Slide 44

Slide 44 text

44 Avoid blocking dependencies

Slide 45

Slide 45 text

45 Move some decision-making to teams

Slide 46

Slide 46 text

46 Team Topologies exposes any lack of clarity in purpose, conﬂict in priorities, or misalignment of incentives

Slide 47

Slide 47 text

Team Topologies outside of IT 47

Slide 48

Slide 48 text

Organizations outside IT and software are already using TT 48

Slide 49

Slide 49 text

49 https://mobile.twitter.com/amcunningham/status/1517912010599682052 “Let's bring Team Topologies to the whole of the [National Health Service]!”

Slide 50

Slide 50 text

50 “the concepts discussed in the book are very much applicable to other working environments and teams [outside software]” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/team-topologies-matthew-skelton-manuel-pais-tara-hopkins/ “Certain activities needed to be provided as a service that employees could easily access and get a quick and accurate result from. On other occasions we worked with a manager in a facilitative way, helping that manager to become better able to manage a situation in the team. In other situations we worked collaboratively with another team to pool resources and problem solve together, coming up with a better solution than either team would have arrived at on their own.”

Slide 51

Slide 51 text

Legal services 51

Slide 52

Slide 52 text

52 Challenges for legal services Real-world cases span legal specialisms Fee earner lawyer prevents team ownership Per-hour billing encourages busy work Law-as-a-service?

Slide 53

Slide 53 text

53 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Client A Individual vs Company

Slide 54

Slide 54 text

54 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team 😊 Facilitating Enabling team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS Cross-border M&A “Fee-earner”

Slide 55

Slide 55 text

Platform grouping 55 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS XaaS Collaboration M&A info managed as part of a ﬂow platform Make the XaaS interaction more useful

Slide 56

Slide 56 text

Platform grouping 56 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS XaaS Stream-aligned team xN Teams making supporting workﬂows and checklists, etc.

Slide 57

Slide 57 text

[Accountancy] 57

Slide 58

Slide 58 text

Clinical care / healthcare 58

Slide 59

Slide 59 text

59 Challenges for clinical care Real-world cases span medical specialisms > Pregnant car accident victim with COVID-19 Consistent care over time without handoﬀs Managing team cognitive load

Slide 60

Slide 60 text

60 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team COVID-19 complications Malnourished

Slide 61

Slide 61 text

61 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team 😊 Facilitating Enabling team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS X-ray or MRI scan Consultant surgeon

Slide 62

Slide 62 text

Platform grouping 62 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS XaaS Collaboration Make the XaaS interaction more useful X-ray or MRI scan managed as part of a ﬂow platform

Slide 63

Slide 63 text

Platform grouping 63 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS XaaS Stream-aligned team xN Teams making supporting workﬂows and checklists, etc. X-ray or MRI scan itself may have “inner” teams

Slide 64

Slide 64 text

Case Study NHS Digital - pandemic response software teams working with international healthcare experts used Team Topologies principles for rapid rollout of COVID-19 testing 64 https://axiologik.com/news-and-insights/delivering-digital-services-at-scale-in-a-crisis

Slide 65

Slide 65 text

News and media 65

Slide 66

Slide 66 text

66 Challenges for news and media Changing consumption of news and media > TikTok, ChatGPT, AI/ML Remove editors from publication critical path Rapidly oﬀer new digital products & tech

Slide 67

Slide 67 text

Platform grouping 67 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS Facilitating Enabling team Editors help to build capability in publication teams Editorial Editors help to deﬁne auto- approval systems

Slide 68

Slide 68 text

Platform grouping 68 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS XaaS Collaboration Shape the content boundaries a data structures Content platform provides composable media consumable by … Product …an ecosystem of digital products

Slide 69

Slide 69 text

Education curriculum design 69

Slide 70

Slide 70 text

70 Challenges for education design Technology changing the relevance of ideas > ChatGPT for essay questions Long cycles (course description as ‘contract’) Avoid ‘big batch’ validation by committee

Slide 71

Slide 71 text

Platform grouping 71 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team Complicated Subsystem team XaaS XaaS Collaboration Discuss ruleset for auto- approval Chemistry Computer ethics

Slide 72

Slide 72 text

HR/People 72

Slide 73

Slide 73 text

73 Challenges for HR / people mgt Rigidity in people placement prevents agility > 7 months to move someone to new dept Individual bonuses work against teamwork Conway’s Law

Slide 74

Slide 74 text

Platform grouping 74 Flow of change Stream-aligned team Stream-aligned team XaaS HR as a platform with internal “customers” Onboarding Move department XaaS XaaS

Slide 75

Slide 75 text

Venue services (e.g. audiovisual equipment) 75

Slide 76

Slide 76 text

76 Challenges for venue services Rapid deployment at scale Courtrooms, music venues Testing and validation

Slide 77

Slide 77 text

The team-based operating system 77

Slide 78

Slide 78 text

78 TeamForm teamform.co

Slide 79

Slide 79 text

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

Slide 80

Slide 80 text

Slide 81

Slide 81 text

WTF is going on?! 81

Slide 82

Slide 82 text

82 Time for some reverse engineering!

Slide 83

Slide 83 text

83 legal services clinical care / healthcare news & media accounting education design HR/people OS ?

Slide 84

Slide 84 text

knowledge work 84

Slide 85

Slide 85 text

language 85

Slide 86

Slide 86 text

interactions 86

Slide 87

Slide 87 text

ownership 87

Slide 88

Slide 88 text

boundaries 88

Slide 89

Slide 89 text

cognitive load 89

Slide 90

Slide 90 text

ﬂow 90

Slide 91

Slide 91 text

91 language interactions boundaries ownership cognitive load ﬂow

Slide 92

Slide 92 text

Hypothesis: Team Topologies provides vital language, patterns, and constraints for almost all knowledge work situations in the context of fast ﬂow and team ownership. 92

Slide 93

Slide 93 text

Summary 93

Slide 94

Slide 94 text

Almost all decisions need to use the twin ‘lenses’ of fast ﬂow and team cognitive load 112

Slide 95

Slide 95 text

Hypothesis: Team Topologies provides vital language, patterns, and constraints for almost all knowledge work situations in the context of fast ﬂow and team ownership. 113

Slide 96

Slide 96 text

114 What’s your perspective? Which aspects resonate? Which things feel incorrect?

Slide 97

Slide 97 text

115 18 & 19 July 2023 @ 13:30-16:30 UK time conﬂuxhq.com/events

Slide 98

Slide 98 text

116 expert-led group learning for adopting fast ﬂow and Team Topologies conﬂuxhq.com