Platform Engineering for Execs: Team Topologies, Tools, and Tradeoffs

In the current economic environment, executives are being told to “do more with less.” For parts of an organisation focused on software delivery, this often translates into consolidating tooling and processes into platforms that enable their app development teams to go faster, decrease risk, and scale effectively.

Executives must understand how to lead such platform initiatives effectively. However, building, running, and – most importantly – gaining value from a platform requires learning many things: organisational design from Team Topologies, tooling from the CNCF and open source ecosystems, and the state-of-the-art of current platform engineering methodologies.

Join this fireside chat to learn from people who have led platform-building efforts in FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 organisations, from banking to insurance, from e-commerce to logistics.

Agenda
- When and how to start building a platform within an organisation
- How to measure the progress and impact of platform engineering
- Why and what to communicate about platform usage, from the board to the boiler room

Check out the recording of this webinar here: https://youtu.be/9SrWu7gGykg

Transcript

1. Platform Engineering for Execs: Team Topologies, Tools, and Tradeoffs Sarah Wells Independent Consultant and Author Daniel Bryant Product Marketing Paula Kennedy Co-founder and COO
2. tl;dr • Execs are now being told to “do more with less” • App dev teams need to go faster, decrease risk, and scale effectively • Platforms can provide high leverage… • But clear leadership must be provided • People, tooling, and tradeoffs are the keys to success
3. Our panelists for today! Sarah Wells Independent Consultant and Author Daniel Bryant, Product Marketing @ Syntasso Paula Kennedy Co-Founder and COO @ Syntasso
4. Our panelists for today! Sarah Wells Independent Consultant and Author Daniel Bryant, Product Marketing @ Syntasso Paula Kennedy Co-Founder and COO @ Syntasso
5. Our panelists for today! Sarah Wells Independent Consultant and Author Daniel Bryant, Product Marketing @ Syntasso Paula Kennedy Co-Founder and COO @ Syntasso
6. Setting the scene
7. Platform engineering and the Gartner Hype Cycle • By 2026, 80% of large software engineering organizations will establish platform engineering teams ◦ Gartner Top 10 Strategic Tech Trends 2024 • Treat your platform as a product ◦ Delivering value through customer focus ◦ Thoughtworks Insights • How do we lead this transformation?
8. We’re starting to hear of failures and challenges
9. Let’s gather around the fire
10. When and how to start building a platform (team and leadership) within an organisation? Comfortable? Let’s begin…
11. How to measure the progress and impact of platform engineering? Comfortable? Let’s begin…
12. Why and what to communicate about platform usage across the org? (e.g. getting buy-in for platform and tooling work vs feature delivery) Comfortable? Let’s begin…
13. What about Team Topologies uptake? (are “dual-purpose” platform and enablement teams common?) Comfortable? Let’s begin…
14. How important is platform tooling (and the CNCF landscape) Comfortable? Let’s begin…
15. Wrap up
16. “Enabling Microservices Success” is available in all good bookshops and online via O’Reilly A big thank you to Sarah!
17. Thank you & additional information Platform Engineering: Orchestrating Applications, Platforms, and Infrastructure (bit.ly/3UNxQei ) How to Take the First Step Towards Self Serve Internal Developer Platforms (bit.ly/4bLMzMD ) Platform Orchestrators: The Missing Middle of Internal Developer Platforms? (bit.ly/3URBoML )