Are you trying to move from agile project teams to business-aligned product teams? Everyone from the CEO to middle management is on board. Yet somehow it’s not that easy, is it? You’ve just about figured out how to split infrastructure responsibilities between teams when the next great tech for cost-effective scalability is out there and it doesn’t fit in the new model. Oh, and let’s not forget that products X and Y have no automated tests since they were developed by temporary project teams. The underlying questions are: What are the product team’s responsibilities? How do they interact with other teams and when? The fundamental team topologies provide a framework for thinking about and aligning teams with an expected set of behaviors and responsibilities. In other words, we are clarifying their purpose and ways of working. We recommend four fundamental team topologies, each with a well defined purpose and responsibilities. Along stream-aligned teams (of which product teams are a subset), the other three topologies recommended are platform, enabling, and complicated subsystem. This family of topologies provides the support system necessary for product teams to thrive. In this talk we will see what each of these topologies brings to the table and how they enable organizations to quickly evolve and respond to both new technology and business requirements over time.

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

2. 2
Manuel Pais
Independent IT organizational consultant and trainer
Ex-dev, ex-build manager, ex-tester, ex-QA lead
LinkedIn instructor on Accelerating Continuous Delivery
Twitter: @manupaisable
LinkedIn: manuelpais

3. Team Topologies
3
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press (2019)
https://teamtopologies.com

4. Origins - DevOps Topologies
4
CC BY-SA devopstopologies.com
@TeamTopologies

5. “Great products emerge from
empowered, fully cross-functional
teams.”
– John Cutler, 2019
5

7. devopstopologies.com

8. devopstopologies.com

9. 9
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/the-2019-accelerate-state-of-
devops-elite-performance-productivity-and-scaling

12. 12
There’s a limit to
the scalability
of product teams alone

13. 13

17. 19
Handovers (can) kill flow

19. 21

20. “Great products emerge from
empowered, fully cross-functional
teams.”
– John Cutler, 2019
22

21. “Despite striving to be
cross-functional, one of the thornier
problems product teams often face is
lacking some necessary
competence.”
– Peter Neumark, 2015
23

22. arch &
design
coding
testing
deploying

23. coding
testing
deploying
infra
arch &
design

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

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

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

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

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

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

30. 32
autonomy

31. 33
competences

32. 34
How to alleviate the tension between:
team autonomy (increases flow)
and
lack of competences (decreases flow)

34. 36
in-flow dependencies
based on handovers
out-of-flow dependencies
based on capability gaps

35. 37

36. 38

37. 39

39. “Cognitive load is the total amount
of mental effort being used in the
working memory”
- John Sweller
43

40. 48
Cognitive load
Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanics)
Germane (business focus)

41. 51
Cognitive load
Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanics)
Germane (business focus)

42. “Software that
fits in your head”
- Daniel Terhorst-North
52
https://speakerdeck.com/tastapod/microservices-software-that-fits-in-your-head?slide=62

43. 53
“Software that
fits in our heads”

44. 54
Team ownership must include:
Releasability
Testability
Operability / Supportability

45. 4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
55
lead time
deployment frequency
mean time to restore (MTTR)
change fail percentage

46. 56

48. “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
58

49. A good platform is
treated as a product
(reliable, usable,
fit for purpose)
59

50. 60

52. 62

53. 63

55. 65

56. 66
Collaboration: 2 teams working together
X-as-a-Service: 1 provides, 1 consumes
Facilitating: 1 team helps another

57. 67
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.

58. 68

59. Also important
69
Team-sized software
Avoid Conway mismatches
Organizational sensing
Thinnest Viable Platform (TVP)

60. 70

61. 71

62. Team Topologies
72
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press
Order via stores worldwide: teamtopologies.com/book

63. teamtopologies.com/news
Team Topologies
Essentials Training
Oct 7, 8, 14, 15 (APAC friendly)
Details: teamtopologies.com/events
4 half-day online sessions with Manuel Pais
10% discount code TTWELLINGTON10

64. Resources
79
teamtopologies.com/resources
(links, slides, video)
github.com/teamtopologies
(templates, assessments, etc)

65. Thank you!
80
Matthew Skelton, Conflux
@matthewpskelton
Manuel Pais, Independent
@manupaisable
teamtopologies.com