The document discusses organizational structures for knowledge workers. It proposes that a hierarchical organizational model does not effectively enable collaboration and value delivery in today's environment. Alternatively, enterprises are looking to group teams into cross-functional, self-organizing teams but this approach has limitations. The document recommends achieving organizational agility at scale by setting up an ecosystem of constantly evolving, self-organizing teams supported by various structures. It provides examples of portfolio structures and the use of value centers, services centers, enablement teams, and traveler pools. Finally, it discusses using team service delivery patterns and team linking patterns to organize the structure and connections between teams.

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Agile Structure for
Knowledge Workers

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A different way to think about
organizational design

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The Hierarchical Organizational Model does not enable knowledge workers to effectively
collaborate and deliver value in today’s environment of constant change
 Scattering of responsibility
 Reliance on bureaucracy
 Part timer syndrome
 Conflicting priority

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Increasingly, enterprises are looking to group teams into cross-functional teams and
empower them to self-organize to deliver value
 Not always practical or economically
feasible
 Suboptimal use of scarce expertise
 Cross cutting concerns get buried
 Loss of organizational cohesion

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Portfolio
Organizational Agility @ Scale can be achieved by setting up and nurturing an
ecosystem of constantly evolving, self-organizing, and interdependent teams, along
with the support structure required to enable those teams to deliver value
Value Center Integrated
Value Center (Delivery)
Services Center
Enablement Team
Enablement Core
Enablement Core
Enablement Core
Traveler Pool
Value Center (Discovery)

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Enablement
Core
Traveler
Pool
Business Operations
Portfolio
Common
Services
Enablement
Teams
DevOps
HRTraining
Comp
Arch CI
Traveler
Pool
Business Operations Portfolio
Common
Services
Traveler
Pool
Business Operations
Portfolio
Common
Services
Enablement Core
• Advisory
• Consulting
• Providing a Platform
Value
Discovery Team
Value
Delivery Team
Value Discovery
& Delivery Team
Value
Discovery Team
Value
Delivery Team
Value Discovery
& Delivery Team
Value
Discovery Team
Value
Delivery Team
Value Discovery
& Delivery Team
Traveler
Pool
Business Operations
Portfolio
Common
Services
Enablement
Teams
Value
Discovery Team
Value
Delivery Team
Value Discovery
& Delivery Team
Business Operations
Portfolio
Traveler
Pool
Common
Services
Enablement
Teams
Value
Discovery Team
Value
Delivery Team
Value Discovery
& Delivery Team
Enablement
Teams
Value
Discovery Team
Value
Delivery Team
Value Discovery
& Delivery Team
Traveler
Pool
Common
Services
Business Operations
Portfolio
Business Ops Portfolio
• Transactional
• Domain Based
(e.g. Payment, Trading)
An agile business can often
be divided into discrete
Business Operations
Portfolios, with the aim of
minimizing dependencies
across portfolios
Enablement
Teams
Enablement
Teams
Work crosses distinct Portfolio boundaries by connecting them directly to each other
or through Enablement Cores

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Teams Services Design Approach

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The following Steps can be followed to layout a structure for your
Organization
1. Layout a service / team structure, defining the following for each team
• Divide the Enterprise into Portfolios that can provide meaningful market value
• Break down the portfolio into units (teams), laying out
• The Service that the team provides
• The Customers that those services are provided to
• The Capabilities required to provide these services to the customer
• What Dependencies each team has on another team
2. Add Service Delivery Patterns and Team Linker patterns to your team model to
layout how mechanisms for knowledge workers to interact with each other
• Select a Team Delivery Pattern to each Service that the team provides
• For each cross team dependency, define the connection using one or more
Team Linking Pattern

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Service and Team Structure

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Delighted
Customer 3
1
Awesome Team 1
5
Delighted
Customer 1
2
Delighted
Customer 2
Delighted
Customer 4
Awesome
Service 1
Awesome
Service 2
Awesome
Service 3
Outstanding
Capability 1
Outstanding
Capability 1
3
4
Ninja Guru
Samurai Rockstar
Awesome
Team 1
Market Portfolio One
mission statement
Awesome
Team 2
Awesome
Team 3
Awesome
Team 4
Awesome
Team 5
Awesome
Team 1
Market Portfolio Two
Awesome
Team 2
Awesome
Team 3
Awesome
Team 4
Awesome
Team 5
6
Define a clear compelling mission
statement for each team in the
portfolio
1
Outline the discrete service that the
teams provides
2
List the capabilities required for the
team to be successful, and map them
to services, (if necessary get Specific
on the people who will be in the team)
3
List the customers for each team
4
Organize teams into portfolios that
have a higher, common purpose
5
Layout dependencies & interactions
across teams in / across portfolios
6
Start by describing the services, clients, and capabilities of your teams, and
organize them into higher order missions

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11
Regulators
Credit Card Foundation Team
Executives
Credit
Expertise
Data /
Analytics
Finance Expert X1 Credit Analyst X 3
Data Scientist X2 Credit Modeller X 1
mission statement
Credit Data
Services
Credit Model
Management
Credit Model
Features
Management
Card
Customers
Card
Feature Pod
Card
Foundations
Team
Partner Cards LOB
Customer
Engagement
Card Activate
Team
Data
Marketing/
Creative
Tech / Digital
Mkt
Execution
Studio 1
Horizontal Ops
Mkt
Execution
Studio 2
Mkt
Execution
Studio 3
…
Mobile &
Web Pod
CRM Pod
…
Achieve Top rated customer NPS
without sacrificing Profitability
Provide market valid features for the business in
a rapid manner @ scale
Software Studio
An example of a real life BizOps Pod within a large FSI

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Team Service Delivery Patterns

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Team Patterns provide a set a concepts that can be used to guide how to
organize and connect knowledge workers into an Integrated Value Network
Team Service Delivery Patterns
• Describe how knowledge workers can provide a discrete type
of value to set of internal or external customers
• A different pattern can be assigned to each service
• Review the Team Service Delivery Pattern Cards to get a
more in depth understanding of each pattern
• Annotate your models using the stickers provided
Credit Card Foundation Team
Credit Model
Features
Card
Feature Pod
Other Card
Pods
Credit & Terms
Consulting
Customer
Value
Center
Shared
Service
Center
Traveller
Pool
Enablement
Team
Community
Of Practice
Dynamic
Swat Team
Portfolio
Team Linker Patterns
• Describe methods that teams can use to coordinate and
collaborate across team and organizational boundaries
• Each connection between teams can be annotated with a
linking pattern
• Review the Team Linking Pattern Cards to get a more in
depth understanding of each card
• Annotate your models using the stickers provided
Collaboration
Time
Rotating
Standup
Participation
Travelling
Intent
Owner
Synchronization
Ceremony
Shared
Discovery &
Grooming
Story Acceptance
Criteria Injection
Business Risk
Office
Credit Card Foundation Team
Credit Model
Features
Card
Feature Pod
Other Card
Pods
Credit & Terms
Consulting
Portfolio
Synchronization
Stable Replenishment
Ceremony

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Each Table will be given one Team Service Design toolkit, please unpack the
contents and start laying out your model
Team Service
Delivery Pattern
Cards and Stickers
Team Linker
Pattern Cards and
Stickers
Design
Instructions

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Service and Linker
Patterns Applied

16. Continually analyzing demand and reorganize the ecosystem
around deliver of value
Sept
(4)
Aug (4)
Next Team
Structure
August
(5)
We Are Done
(3)
In Market
Sept
(5)
Oct
(5)
Oct
(5)
Current Team
Structure
Team A
Team B
Team C
Keep your Agile Ecosystem design up to date by integrating it with deliberate
Portfolio level practices
Partially
Started
(3)
All Started
(3)
Team A
Team B
Team C
Team D
Team A
Team B
Sept
(3)
Aug (3)
Team C
Sept
(3)
Aug (3)
Idea Shaping
(3)
Idea Pool
1
2
4
High (10 Stories)
High (10 Stories)
Med (5 Stories)
3
4
Leads prioritize the
next two months’
worth of work and
does an initial
• Thin Slice / Break
down
• Assess Impact on
Capability
• Estimate Cost of
Delay and Value
and Profile
Existing team or
swat team
completes the
exercise
1
Team structure may be
updated to organize
around the highest
priority value
Changes are validated
with impacted Team
members
Work is placed in
Teams backlog using
explicit Work In
progress Limits to
enable focus and quick
delivery
Leads
replenish the
immediate
backlog and
commit to the
work to start
as a Portolio
Teams
influence and
validate all
commitment
decision
2 3
Teams level
visual
management is
used to track
backlogs and
workflow.
Team
productivity,
impediments,
and insight often
feeds leader
meetings rather
than the other
way around `1
4
Expedite
(Emergency)
Fixed
(Regulatory)
Standard
(Revenue)
Intangible
(Investment)
COD Profile
Cost of Delay: 50k mth
Lead Time: 10 mths
CD3: 5K
Portfolio Lead Time
Agility is
measured as:
• The lead time
for the
Portolio to do
their work
• lead time for
the entire
organization
to get the
work to
market
5
5
Market Lead Time
Team commit here Team delivery Point
E2E
delivery
Point

17. Putting Portfolio level practices in place can be the first step to enabling
participants to self-form into teams
• How do we deliver on Key
Outcomes?
• How can we organize to deliver
value?
• What are the quickest paths to value?
Command
Center Stand-up
(1 X day)
Portfolio Prioritization &
Commitment
Portfolio
Retrospective
Portfolio
Shaping
• What do we want to deliver
next?
• Are we ready to deliver?
• Who will
• Are we delivering the value we expected ?
• What are our biggest impediments and how
can we solve them? value?
• IS the Ecosystem working?
• What Teams are blocked across the
Portfolio and how can we help?
• How can we align to deliver?
• Are we collaborating across the
ecosystem

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Team Service Delivery and Linker Cards

19. Think about organizing teams through application of one or more Team Delivery
Patterns
• Dedicated, cross functional and hopefully co-located
• perform activities necessary to create market value
• Work enters and is completed without minimal
external dependencies.
• The team is self-organized and empowered
• demand can be serviced by stable combination of
capabilities that can form a team
• High degree of collaboration required to service
demand
• Output of the team can be consumed by the market
Usage Criteria
Customer Value Center
Service Delivery Patterns
@Agile_ByDesign

20. Think about organizing teams through application of one or more Team Delivery
Patterns
• More specialized workers that support “internal”
demand
• Work often travels from a value center, to be
processed by the service team, with outputs
delivered back to the value center
• Highly specialized skills that are hard to transfer and
take significant time to learn
• Workers require high degree of internal alignment
within the service
• Work is manual, and effort intensive, and benefits
less from market feedback
Usage Criteria
Shared Service
Center
Service Delivery Patterns
@Agile_ByDesign

21. Traveler Pool
• Groups of more specialized workers who are
organized into pools in order to meet high
demand across a number of value centers
• Requests are fulfilled by pool members joining the
team who made the request for services, staying
until work is completed
• Highly specialized skills that are hard to transfer
and take significant time to learn
• Demand from a value center tends to be ad hoc
• High degree of collaboration between the worker
and the value center is critical
Usage Criteria
Think about organizing teams through application of one or more Team Delivery
Patterns
Service Delivery Patterns
@Agile_ByDesign

22. Enablement team
Usage Criteria
• Owners of an enterprise concern or capability,
• Often provides a platform to enable teams
• Deployed at the portfolio level providing guidance
over a specific set of interrelated teams
• Deploy oversight and guidance in a way that
enables and empowers
• Focus on the application of advice and governance
• Teaching team members how to adopt to new
capabilities
• Value from teams using a common platform
Think about organizing teams through application of one or more Team Delivery
Patterns
Service Delivery Patterns
@Agile_ByDesign

23. Community
Of Practice
• A connected network of individuals who benefit
by collaborating on a shared capability
• Often virtual, membership comes from interested
contributors from other teams.
• Build through consensus and foster learning
• Support grass-roots development of a shared
understanding and learning
• Information flows primarily from employees to
the center
• Opportunity to motivate and volunteer
Usage Criteria
Think about organizing teams through application of one or more Team Delivery
Patterns
Service Delivery Patterns
@Agile_ByDesign

24. Think about organizing teams through application of one or more Team Delivery
Patterns
Swat team
• Is created just in time from a collection of teams
• a temporary overlay on the existing team
structure
• Has a common backlog and members agree to
hold common agile ceremonies
• Individuals from different teams need to
collaborating together on highly integrated Intent
• Requirement to keep the original team structure in
place.
• Duration not long enough to reconfigure teams
• Insufficient buy in to form more stable teams
Usage Criteria
Service Delivery Patterns
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25. Description
• A grouping of interrelated agile teams aligned to a
common mission
• Cohesive domain of a customer valued engine that
provides a market offering
• Managed through an integrated backlog and
dedicate management, and portfolio level
ceremonies
• Provide structure and direction necessary to
deliver value at scale
• Enable a collection of teams to align towards a
common goal
• Contain dependencies into a manageable grouping
of teams
Usage Criteria
Think about organizing teams through application of one or more Team Delivery
Patterns
Portfolio
Service Delivery Patterns
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26
Team Linker Patterns

27. • Dedicated space and time for team members to
come together and collaborate and synchronize
across team boundaries in an open, unstructured
way
• Scheduled at a set reoccurring cadence
• Participants self organize to solve problems
• Group of interrelated teams benefit from a high
collaboration in a way that is hard to predict
• Want teams to innovate and share on higher level
mission objectives
Think about Connecting teams through application of one or more Team Linking
Patterns
Open Space
Usage Criteria
Team Linking Patterns
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28. Think about Connecting teams through application of one or more Team Linking
Patterns
• Teams participation on other teams daily
standups
• Need often identified when analyzing team
backlogs for dependencies
• Participant often chosen on a rotating basis
• Work on two teams contain identifiable
dependencies
• Need for moderate synchronization of work across
teams
• Opportunities for teams to provide timely
assistance to other teams
Rotating Standup Participation
Usage Criteria
Team Linking Patterns
@Agile_ByDesign

29. Think about Connecting teams through application of one or more Team Linking
Patterns
=
• One team member brings a unit of work to another
team in order to facilitate it’s completion
• The owner of the intent travels to the other team
and works closely with the team, owning the
definition and validation of done for the work
• Intent forming teams require the help of more
delivery focused teams
• Teams need to support multiple business areas,
and bring in the business expertise required at the
right time
Travelling Intent Owner
Usage Criteria
Team Linking Patterns
@Agile_ByDesign

30. Think about Connecting teams through application of one or more Team Linking
Patterns
=
• Two teams agree to meet to synchronize work
across the teams
• Meeting follows a repeatable ceremony
• Meeting can be scheduled at a set cadence or
triggered through a pull system
• Need to manage a predictable dependency across
two teams
• Dependency requires thoughtful coordination
across the teams
Synchronisation Ceremony
Usage Criteria
Team Linking Patterns
@Agile_ByDesign

31. Think about Connecting teams through application of one or more Team Linking
Patterns
=
• Two teams agree to plan and scope work together
• Share a common backlog of work
• Triage work across the teams
• Teams have a shared business objective
• Common pool of customers and stakeholders
• Share a common platform
Shared Discovery &
Grooming
Usage Criteria
Team Linking Patterns
@Agile_ByDesign

32. Think about Connecting teams through application of one or more Team Linking
Patterns
=
• Members responsible for governance or auditing
the teams work examine backlogs of teams for
risk and tag work that required closer examination
• They may inject additional acceptance criteria
into stories as they are being groomed by the team
• Governance members validate that stories pass
their enhanced definition of done as a part of
story validation
• Want to address governance, compliance, or
address enterprise concerns
• Don’t want to slow teams down by forcing them
through Gates and check points
Story Acceptance Criteria Injection
Usage Criteria
Team Linking Patterns
@Agile_ByDesign

33. Think about Connecting teams through application of one or more Team Linking
Patterns
=
• Multiple teams synchronize work by replicating
team ceremonies to better collaborate at the
portfolio or enterprise level
• Portfolio level planning, standups, and reviews
are attended by delegates from each team
• Managed through portfolio level backlogs, status
reports and other information radiators
• Running a program or supporting a portfolio of
demand with shared capacity
• Delivering value required traversing numerous
dependencies across teams
• Need to escalate impediments and risks that
impact the portfolio quickly
Portfolio
Synchronization
Usage Criteria
Team Linking Patterns
@Agile_ByDesign

34. Think about Connecting teams through application of one or more Team Linking
Patterns 3
4
Stable Replenishment Ceremony
• A team needs to service multiple stakeholder
• Stakeholders attend a replenishment meeting held
at a stable cadence to determine what work gets
prioritized into the teams immediate backlog
• Often different replenishment cadences and
ceremonies are used for different classes of service
or market risk
• A need to service multiple stakeholder with
different types of demand
• Need to provide different types of services that
have different market risk, urgency, or risk
profiles
Usage Criteria
Team Linking Patterns
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Jeff Anderson, President
647.381.5932
jeff.anderson@agilebydesign.com
Taimur Mohammad, Partner
416.230.8814
taimur.mohammad@agilebydesign.com
Andrew Larosa, Partner
416.801.8205
andrew.larosa@agilebydesign.com