This document discusses concepts from the book "Team Topologies" about organizing teams for remote work. It promotes defining team dependencies, interactions, and boundaries to improve collaboration. It argues organizational charts don't reflect reality and interactions should be driven by real needs, not formal processes. It also advocates clarifying communication purposes and channels, using feedback to evolve, and replacing rigid support structures with swarming to resolve incidents.

1. TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Manuel Pais
co-author of Team Topologies
Remote-First Team
Interactions

2. Remote Work ?
+
3

3. Remote Work
tools
+
ground rules and practices
4

4. 5
Poor remote interactions
can kill the
“digital transformation”.

5. Team Topologies
6
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press (Sep 2019)
Order via stores worldwide: teamtopologies.com/book

6. 7
Team Dependencies
Setting Team Boundaries
Purposeful Interactions
Feedback

7. Team Dependencies
8

8. 9
In a remote-first context,
it’s vital to understand
who is working on what

9. Team API
10

10. “For effective team-first ownership
of software, teams need to
continuously define, advertise, test,
and evolve their Team API”
Team Topologies, p.48
11

11. Team API
12
● Artifacts owned by the team
● Versioning & testing approach
● Wiki and documentation
● Practices and principles
● Roadmap & priorities
● Communication preferences (when/how)

12. Team API
13
● Artifacts owned by the team
● Versioning & testing approach
● Wiki and documentation
● Practices and principles
● Roadmap & priorities
● Communication preferences (when/how)

13. 14
https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-API-template

14. Tracking Dependencies
15

15. Team dependencies tracking
16
https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-Dependencies-Tracking

16. “Making Work Visible”
17

17. 18
Eliminate blocking dependencies.
Mitigate slow dependencies.
Keep healthy dependencies.

18. Building Networks
19

19. 20

20. 21

21. Setting Team
Boundaries
22

22. Group Trust Levels
23

23. “an individual’s social network
(meaningful relationships)
is typically in the order of
100–200 individuals”
- Robin Dunbar
24
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.150292

24. 25

25. 26

26. 27
Trust dynamics can change
when crossing a Dunbar
boundary. Expect different
rules & non-linear effects.

27. 28
Private car salesCommercial car sales
Car leasing
[example]From Team Topologies,
chapter 3 (page 53)

28. 29

29. 30
Private car sales
Commercial car sales
Car leasing

30. 31
# enabling-test-automation
...
# platform-team
…
# stream-team-1
# stream-team-2
# stream-team-3
...
# st1-platform-monitoring
# st2-enabling-test-automation
...
Mary (Platform
Team Engineer)
# support-environments
# support-logging
…
# marketing
# sales
...

31. 32

32. Team-focused conventions
33
● team channel: team topology and name
● (temp) interaction channel: teams + purpose
● support channel: support + service name
● username: name + role + team + topology

33. 34
Team-focused conventions
increase discoverability
and reduce cognitive load
on communications.

34. Purposeful
Interactions
46

35. Infinite Collaboration
(Myth Busting)
47

36. 48
We cannot and should not
expect to talk to everyone
else (person or team)

37. 49
Well-defined interactions
are key to effective teams

38. 50
Team Interaction Modes
Collaboration: 2 teams working together
X-as-a-Service: 1 provides, 1 consumes
Facilitating: 1 team helps another

39. 51

40. 52
https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-API-template

41. Stream-aligned team 1
53
Teams we currently interact with:
Team Name Interaction Mode Purpose Duration
Test Automation
Enabling team
Facilitating Understand test
automation and
data mgmt
examples for iOS
3 weeks
(from Apr 13
to Apr 30,
2h per day)
Face Recognition
Complicated
subsystem team
Collaboration Define response
errors and
workflow for poor
contrast photos
2 months
(from Mar 30
to May 29,
1 day per week)

42. Use awkwardness in team
interactions as a sensing
mechanism for evolution
54

43. Org Chart as
Communication Path
(Myth Busting)
55

44. 56
Org Chart
vs
Reality

45. 57
The Org Chart Problem
Source: “Team of Teams”, McChrystal, 2015

46. the key to successful knowledge
work is in the interactions
between the informal structure
and the value creation structure
58

47. let real needs drive the
interactions between teams,
not formal processes
or org chart decisions
59

48. 60

49. Clarify Communication
Purpose & Channels
64

50. 65
https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Thin-Platform-template

51. 66
https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Thin-Platform-template

52. 67
https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Thin-Platform-template

53. Incident Response
68

54. “...three-tier support should be
replaced with Swarming”
– Jon Stevens-Hall, 2016
69
https://medium.com/@JonHall_/itsm-devops-and-why-the-three
-tier-structure-must-be-replaced-with-swarming-91e76ba22304

55. 70

56. 72
# swarm-severity-1
# swarm-local-dispatch
...
Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

57. Feedback
73

58. 74

59. 75
https://www.infoq.com/presentations/twilio-devops/

60. 76

61. Team Topologies
77
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press
Order via stores worldwide: teamtopologies.com/book

62. Free workbook
coming soon...
Team Topologies
for Remote Teams
78
for Remote
Teams
Sign up for news: teamtopologies.com/newsletter

63. Remote-First
Training & Assessments
teamtopologies.com/training
teamtopologies.com/assessments

64. Team Topologies for PMs
80
ascent.pmi.org
self-paced 4h course
NYCSUG_15OFF
(15% discount code
valid until Jun 23)
More courses from Peter
Drucker, Jeff Gothelf &
Josh Seiden, and others

65. Resources
81
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)

66. Thank you!
82
Matthew Skelton, Conflux
@matthewpskelton
Manuel Pais, Independent
@manupaisable
teamtopologies.com