TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Accelerating Flow with
Team Topologies & Friends
Manuel Pais
co-author of Team Topologies
Wroclaw Kanban Lean & Coffee - 5 Jun 2023
Team Topologies
3
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press, 2019
teamtopologies.com/book
“innovative tools and concepts for
structuring the next generation
digital operating model”
Charles T. Betz,
Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
4
Remote Team Interactions
Workbook
5
Using Team Topologies
Patterns for Remote Working
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press, 2022
Available to pre-order now
teamtopologies.com/workbook
“extends the original book with
valuable exercises to setup your
teams effectively for a
Remote First world”
Stefan van Oirschot,
Chief Digital Advisor at Red Hat
6
7
What is business agility?
Being agile, not doing ‘Agile’
Valuable: product mindset
Team Topologies example
What is
business agility?
9
Business Agility: the ability
to respond rapidly* to
changing internal and
external conditions (* in hours)
11
Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash
Remote-first
12
Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash
Speed of change:
technology, climate,
geopolitical
13
Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash
Increased
global and local
competition
Questions to answer
How do we optimize for a
fast flow of change?
Questions to answer
How do we make sure we
focus on user needs?
Questions to answer
How do we easily
‘course-correct’ when we
need to adjust?
Fast flow is a prerequisite
for business agility
29
What is business agility?
Being agile, not doing ‘Agile’
Valuable: product mindset
Team Topologies example
Being agile,
not doing ‘Agile’
Accelerate
Building and Scaling High Performing
Technology Organizations
Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim
IT Revolution Press, 2018
Order via stores worldwide:
https://itrevolution.com/book/accelerate/
36
37
4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
Lead Time
Deployment Frequency
Mean Time To Restore
Change Fail Percentage
38
Fast feedback via
deployment pipelines
39
Good technical
practices (TDD, …)
40
Configuration in
version control
41
Cloud-native:
high observability
quick recovery
42
Cloud-native:
designed for
automation
43
Continuous
testing
performance
scanning
deployment
monitoring
right-sizing
integration
44
https://puppet.com/resources/report/2021-state-of-devops-report
45
“Organizations should not expect to
become highly evolved just because
they use cloud and automation…
They are held back by organizational
structure and dynamics”
46
Team ownership of
software & services
47
Re-aligned
architecture
49
Domain-driven design
(DDD)
Untangle business concepts for
faster flow
51
Wardley Maps
Increase situational awareness
and apply the right techniques -
custom/product/utility
53
Dynamic Reteaming
Reshape orgs using proven
patterns and a socially minded
approach to team changes
55
Team Topologies
Fast flow, rapid feedback, team
interactions, org evolution, team
cognitive load, ...
56
Rapid flow of change
57
Rapid feedback from
running systems
58
Handovers kill flow
60
61
62
Flow of change
63
“Highly evolved firms use a
combination of stream-aligned
teams and platform teams as the
most effective way to manage team
cognitive load at scale”
🔍
Track dependencies and
separate “blocking” from
“non-blocking”
64
⏳ ⏳
Blocking
Non-
Blocking
Remove barriers to flow:
hand-offs, approval gates,
manual inspections
Replace with self-service APIs
66
⚠
Compliance mindset shift:
Permitting to Enabling
67
68
Compliance
as Code
(API)
70
Flow of change
Domain
experts as
Enabling
team for
compliance /
governance
71
What is business agility?
Being agile, not doing ‘Agile’
Valuable: product mindset
Team Topologies example
The value of a
product mindset
Product:
Holistic User Experience
Functionality + Design + Monetization + Content
– Marty Cagan, 2010
73
Source: https://svpg.com/defining-product/
74
75
A product is optional to
use - no-one is forced to
use the product
76
77
A product is carefully
designed and curated
78
79
A product simplifies
something for users
80
81
A product evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes
A strong focus on
user needs drives
good software
#UX
The software should
‘get out of the way’ -
design for usability
⚠
Platform mindset shift:
Product Management
for internal platforms
84
85
86
A platform is optional to
use - no team is forced to
use the platform
Platforms must advocate for their
platform product and “market” it to
internal teams
(User Personas, UX, talking...)
Internal Marketing
87
88
A platform is a curated
experience for engineers
(the customers of the
platform).
89
What is business agility?
Being agile, not doing ‘Agile’
Valuable: product mindset
Team Topologies example
Team Topologies
example
Case studies in the TT book
91
92
...
Industry examples
since book publication
94
teamtopologies.com/examples
Case
Study
98
● Founded 2005
● 70 stores in the UK
● £260m revenue
● 2500 employees
● 2019: changes to make IT
more responsive
99
High fragmentation of work and focus
100
J
a
n
2
0
1
9
Identify boundaries - business domain
101
m
i
d
-
2
0
1
9
Team Topologies for Product Managers
103
J
u
n
2
0
1
9
“The Product Managers from each team took
special interest in the team interaction types as
it helped them to have useful, directed
conversations about upcoming work, they could
essentially fact-check their different roadmaps
and make sure that the interactions required
were lined up in advance. “
-- Andy Norton,
Software Development Manager, Footasylum
Align to Team Topologies concepts
104
A
u
g
2
0
1
9
Adopt the Thinnest Viable Platform
105
F
e
b
2
0
2
0
Static data fine
to begin with:
shops rarely
move!
Combine with Wardley Mapping
106
J
a
n
2
0
2
0
Clarity of purpose from team types
108
F
e
b
2
0
2
0
Concepts
● Stream-aligned (business domain)
● Thinnest Viable Platform
● Evolving teams and interactions
● Combine with Wardley Mapping
109
Results
● Product Mgt superpowers
● Effective comms during COVID-19
● Responsive, self-sufficient teams
110
teamtopologies.com/examples
Thanks to:
Paul Martin
IT Director, Footasylum
Andy Norton
Software Development
Manager, Footasylum
112
141
What is business agility?
Being agile, not doing ‘Agile’
Valuable: product mindset
Team Topologies example
Respond rapidly to
changing external and
internal conditions
Situational awareness,
clarity of business purpose,
good technical practices,
localised decisions
Strong focus on user needs
and User Experience (UX),
clear costs, viability,
mission, ...
How does Team Topologies
help with business and
technical agility?
146
Team Topologies
encourages decoupling of
business concepts to help
make the organization
more responsive
Team Topologies patterns
help to turn blocking
compliance checks into
self-service, flow-aligned,
API-driven checks
Team Topologies is partly a
sense-making approach to
help organizations gain
situational awareness and
therefore agility
Team Topologies helps the
organization to focus
tightly on its core mission
via streams and limiting
team cognitive load
What next?
151
Free Resources
152
teamtopologies.com/learn
(infographics, key concepts, talks)
teamtopologies.com/tools
(Team API, cognitive load, etc)
Infographics
● Getting Started
● In a Nutshell
153
teamtopologies.com/infographics
academy.teamtopologies.com
15% off
with code
kanban15
156
Copyright © Team Topologies Ltd 2023. All rights reserved.
teamtopologies.com

Accelerating Flow with Team Topologies & Friends @ Wroclaw Kanban, Lean & Coffee, Jun 2023