Autonomous product teams are key for sustainable software delivery. But what does autonomy really mean? Do we expect the team to set up CI/CD, automate infra, test/UX all the things, and, of course, run and monitor their product? And still deliver features? Four fundamental team topologies and three interaction modes can help reduce the cognitive load on product teams.

1. TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Product Teams
Need a Family Too!
Manuel Pais
@manupaisable

2. “Great products emerge from
empowered, fully cross-functional
teams.”
– John Cutler, 2019
2

4. devopstopologies.com

5. devopstopologies.com

6. 6
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/the-2019-accelerate-state-of-
devops-elite-performance-productivity-and-scaling

9. 9
There’s a limit to
the scalability
of product teams alone

10. 10

11. 11

16. 16
Handovers (can) kill flow

18. 18

19. “Great products emerge from
empowered, fully cross-functional
teams.”
– John Cutler, 2019
19

20. “Despite striving to be
cross-functional, one of the thornier
problems product teams often face is
lacking some necessary
competence.”
– Peter Neumark, 2015
20

21. arch &
design
coding
testing
deploying

22. coding
testing
deploying
infra
arch &
design

23. coding
testing
deploying
infra
CI/CD
arch &
design

24. coding
testing
deploying
infra
ops
CI/CD
arch &
design

25. coding
testing
deploying
security
infra
ops
CI/CD
arch &
design

26. coding
testing
deploying
security
infra
ops
CI/CD
arch &
designbuilding the
product right

27. coding
testing
deploying
security
infra
ops
UXmonitor
metrics
product
viability
QA
CI/CD
arch &
design

28. coding
testing
deploying
security
infra
ops
UXmonitor
metrics
product
viability
QA
CI/CD
arch &
designbuilding the
right product

29. 29
autonomy

30. 30
competences

31. 31
How to alleviate the tension between:
team autonomy (increases flow)
and
lack of competences (decreases flow)

33. 33
hard team dependencies
based on work handovers
soft dependencies
based on capability needs

34. 34

35. 35

36. 36

38. 38

40. “Cognitive load is the total amount
of mental effort being used in the
working memory”
- John Sweller
40

41. 41
Cognitive load
Intrinsic: “How is a class defined in Java?”

42. 42
Cognitive load
Intrinsic (skills)

43. 43
Cognitive load
Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous: “How do I deploy this app again?”

44. 44
Cognitive load
Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanics)
Germane: “How do bank transfers work?”

45. 45
Cognitive load
Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanics)
Germane (business focus)

46. 46
Cognitive load
Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanics)
Germane (business focus)

47. 47
Cognitive load
Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanics)
Germane (business focus)

48. 48
Cognitive load
Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanics)
Germane (business focus)

49. “Software that
fits in your head”
- Daniel Terhorst-North
49
https://speakerdeck.com/tastapod/microservices-software-that-fits-in-your-head?slide=62

50. 50
“Software that
fits in our heads”

51. 4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
51
lead time
deployment frequency
mean time to restore (MTTR)
change fail percentage

52. 52

54. “A digital platform is a foundation of
self-service APIs, tools, services,
knowledge and support which are
arranged as a compelling internal
product.”
– Evan Bottcher, 2018
54

55. A good platform is
treated as a product
(reliable, usable,
fit for purpose)
55

56. 56

58. 58

59. 59

61. 61

62. 62
Collaboration: 2 teams working together
X-as-a-Service: 1 provides, 1 consumes
Facilitating: 1 team helps another

63. 63

64. 64
When used with care, these are the only
four fundamental team topologies
and three core interaction modes
needed to build and run
modern software systems.

65. 65

66. 66

67. Also important
67
Team-sized software
Avoid Conway mismatches
Organizational sensing
Thinnest Viable Platform (TVP)

68. Team Topologies for PMs
68
ascent.pmi.org
4h course
Available
mid-April 2020
More courses from Peter
Drucker, Jeff Gothelf &
Josh Seiden, and others

69. Nationwide Project to Product: Practical Realities at a Large Scale Enterprise
Adidas Where Cloud Native Meets the Sporting Goods Industry
Barclays The Yin and Yang of Speed and Control
BMW Game Changer: 100% Agile
DevOpsTopologies.com
Mercedes DevOps Adoption at Mercedes-Benz.io
Twilio Platforms at Twilio: Unlocking Developer Effectiveness
MAN Truck & Bus How to Manage Cloud Infrastructure at MAN Truck & Bus
Farfetch UX I DevOps - The Trojan Horse for Implementing a DevOps Culture

71. Team Topologies
71
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press
Order via stores worldwide: teamtopologies.com/book

72. Free workbook coming soon
Team Topologies
for Remote Teams
72
for Remote
Teams
Sign up for news: teamtopologies.com/newsletter
Remote-first Team Interactions video:
youtube.com/watch?v=iQ6JfBt_rc4

73. Training
73
Day 1
Fundamentals
Day 2
Deep Dive
Day 3
Applying in Context
teamtopologies.com/training

74. Resources
74
teamtopologies.com/key-concepts
tinyurl.com/Public-Talks-Team-Topologies
techbeacon.com/devops/why-you-should-hire-devops-enablers-not-experts
techbeacon.com/app-dev-testing/forget-monoliths-vs-microservices-cognit
ive-load-what-matters
github.com/teamtopologies
(Team Cognitive Load Assessment, Independent Service Heuristics, Thin
Platform template, Team Dependencies Tracking, Team API template)

75. Thank you!
75
Matthew Skelton, Conflux
@matthewpskelton
Manuel Pais, Independent
@manupaisable
teamtopologies.com
@teamtopologies