From a webinar on 29 April 2021 https://info.container-solutions.com/wtf-is-platform-as-product-2nd-edition Savvy organisations are discovering the value of treating their internal platforms as products. But what does it mean to treat a “platform as a product”? What benefits does this give, and why would an organisation adopt this approach? In this talk, [Matthew Skelton] [Manuel Pais], co-author of the book Team Topologies, explains why the platform-as-product approach can be a game-changer for organisations building and running software-enabled products and services. Using ideas & patterns from Team Topologies - including Thinnest Viable Platform, team cognitive load, and the evolutionary team interaction modes - [Matthew] [Manuel] explains how organisations like adidas and Uswitch have successfully used the platform-as-product model to accelerate and simplify the delivery of software at scale.

1. TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
What is
Platform as a Product?
Clues from Team Topologies
Matthew Skelton
co-author of Team Topologies
WTFinar - Container Solutions - 29 Apr 2021 - v2
@matthewpskelton

2. Matthew Skelton
2
Co-author of the book Team Topologies
Founder at Conflux - confluxdigital.net
Experience as: software developer,
system architect, technical director,
change enabler, conference organizer...
Twitter: @matthewpskelton

3. Team Topologies
4
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press (2019)
teamtopologies.com/book

4. “innovative tools and concepts for
structuring the next generation
digital operating model”
Charles T. Betz,
Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
5

5. What is “Platform as a
Product” and why should I
adopt this approach?
6

6. 7
What is a Platform?
What really is a Product?
Examples: P-as-a-P
Getting Started

7. What is a Platform?
8

8. “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
9
Source: https://martinfowler.com/articles/talk-about-platforms.html

9. “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
10

10. “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
11

11. “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
12

12. 13
https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar
May 2020

13. 14
Adopt: Applying product
management to internal
platforms
Trial: Platform engineering
product teams

14. 15
“...we’ve been using the
concepts from Team
Topologies to split platform
teams in our projects into
enablement teams, core
“platform within a platform”
teams and stream-focused
teams.”
-- ThoughtWorks Tech Radar, Vol.22, p.10

15. 16
https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar
Apr 2021

16. 17
Adopt: Platform
engineering product teams
Hold: Layered platform
teams [split by technology]

17. 18
“We’re still big fans of using
concepts from Team
Topologies as we think about
how best to organize platform
teams. We consider platform
engineering product teams
to be a standard approach
and a significant enabler for
high-performing IT.”
-- ThoughtWorks Tech Radar, Vol.24, p.9

18. 19
A platform is a curated
experience for engineers
(the customers of the
platform).

19. 20
treat the platform as a
product (reliable, usable, fit
for purpose) for voluntary
internal customers
Platform as a Product

20. “Create a path of
least resistance.
Make the right thing
the easiest thing to do.”
– Evan Bottcher, 2018
21

21. 22

22. 23

23. 24

24. 25

25. 26
Team Cognitive Load

26. “Cognitive load is the total
amount of mental effort
being used in the working
memory”
- John Sweller
27

27. Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanism)
Germane (domain focus)
28

28. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
29
“How are
classes
defined in
Java?”

29. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
30
“How do I
deploy this
app,
again?”

30. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
31
“How do
bank
transfers
work?”

31. Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanics)
Germane (domain focus)
32

32. (Intrinsic)
] Extraneous [
Germane
33

33. The platform should not
*increase* the cognitive load
on teams using the platform
38

34. 39
Thinnest Viable Platform

35. 40

36. 41
Thinnest Viable Platform
smallest set of APIs, documentation,
and tools needed to accelerate teams
developing modern software services
and systems

37. “software developers love building
platforms and, without strong product
management input, will create a
bigger platform than needed.”
- Allan Kelly
42

38. 43
Example: Thinnest Viable Platform
A small, curated set of complementary
services or patterns to use together to
simplify and accelerate delivery.
“Use these N services in these ways...”
Photo by Jean-Philippe Delberghe on Unsplash

39. A good platform is just
“big enough” but no bigger
44

40. 45
Platform evolution via
Team Interaction Modes

41. 46

42. 47
strong collaboration with
stream-aligned teams for
any new service or evolution
Platform Behaviors

43. 48

44. 49

45. 50
provide support and great
documentation for stable
services
Platform Behaviors

46. 51

47. Clarify (platform) service
boundaries and provide
abstractions to reduce the
cognitive load on teams.
52

48. 53
2019
Addressed critical
cross-functional
needs (GDPR,
security, alerts +
SLOs as a service)
Adoption by HMRT
(Highest Maturity
& Revenue Team)
2017
Infra platform
started with few
services
First customer
(centralized
logging, metrics,
auto scaling)
2018
Started using SLAs
and SLOs, clarifying
reliability/latency/etc
Growing traffic in
platform vs AWS

49. What really is a
Product?
54

50. “product (...) is anything that can be
offered to a market to satisfy the
desire or need of a customer”
- Wikipedia
55
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_(business)

51. Product = Holistic User Experience
➔ Functionality
➔ Design
➔ Monetization
➔ Content
– Marty Cagan, 2010
56
Source: https://svpg.com/defining-product/

52. 57

53. 58
A product is optional to
use - no-one is forced to
use the product

54. 59

55. 60
A product is carefully
designed and curated

56. 61

57. 62
A product simplifies
something for users

58. 63

59. 64
A product evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes

60. 65
A platform is a curated
experience for engineers
(the customers of the
platform).

61. 66
A platform is optional to
use - no team is forced to
use the platform

62. 67
Platforms must advocate
for their platform
product and “market” it
to internal teams

63. 68
A platform is carefully
designed and curated

64. 69
Platforms must be
designed with the user in
mind (internal teams) -
focus on UX and DevEx

65. 70
A platform simplifies
something for users

66. 71
Platforms must help
users to achieve goals by
understanding user
needs and simplifying
tasks

67. 72
A platform evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes

68. 73
Platforms must evolve
the capabilities they
offer (adding/removing)
with a clear roadmap or
trajectory

69. 74
A platform uses modern
product management
(and service management)

70. 75

71. 76
A platform needs modern
product management
(and service management)
as demonstrated by SaaS
companies

72. 77
product metrics
Platform Metrics

73. 4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
78
lead time
deployment frequency
mean time to restore (MTTR)
change fail percentage

74. 79
product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
Platform Metrics

75. 80

76. 81
product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
adoption & engagement metrics
Platform Metrics

77. 82

78. 83
product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
adoption & engagement metrics
reliability metrics
Platform Metrics

79. 85
product metrics
(Accelerate metrics for platform services)
user satisfaction metrics
(Accelerate metrics for business services, NPS, etc)
adoption & engagement metrics
(% teams onboard, per platform and per service)
reliability metrics
(SLOs, latency, #Incidents, etc)
Platform Metrics

80. 86
The success of platform
teams is the success of
stream-aligned teams

81. Examples:
Platform as a Product
87

82. Case
Study
88

83. 89
Source: https://teamtopologies.com/industry-examples/organizational-evolution-accelerating-delivery-of-comparison-services-uswitch
Organizational evolution for
accelerating delivery of
comparison services at Uswitch

84. 90
Flow of change

85. 91
Low-level AWS service calls (EC2, IAM, STS, Autoscaling, etc.) from January 2015 to January 2017

86. “We didn’t change our organization
because we wanted to use
Kubernetes, we used Kubernetes
because we wanted to change
our organization.”
- Paul Ingles
92

87. 93
Low-level AWS service calls since Kubernetes adoption in January 2017

88. 95
enable stream-aligned
teams to deliver work
autonomously with
self-service capabilities ...
Platform Purpose

89. 96
… in order to reduce
extraneous cognitive load
on stream-aligned teams
Platform Purpose

90. “We wanted to scale our teams but
maintain the principles of what
helped us move fast: autonomy,
work with minimal coordination,
self-service infrastructure.”
- Paul Ingles
98

91. Treat the platform
as a product
99

92. Reliable
Fit for Purpose
Focused on DevEx
100

93. “Kubernetes helps us in a few ways:
- Application-focused abstractions
- Operate and configure clusters to
minimise coordination ”
- Paul Ingles 104

94. 108
2018
Infra platform
started with few
services
First customer
(centralized
logging, metrics,
auto scaling)

95. 109
2018
Infra platform
started with few
services
First customer
(centralized
logging, metrics,
auto scaling)
2019
Started using SLAs
and SLOs, clarifying
reliability/latency/etc
Growing traffic in
platform vs AWS

96. 110
...
Addressed critical
cross-functional
needs (GDPR,
security, alerts +
SLOs as a service)
Adoption by HMMT
(Highest Money
Making Team)
2018
Infra platform
started with few
services
First customer
(centralized
logging, metrics,
auto scaling)
2019
Started using SLAs
and SLOs, clarifying
reliability/latency/etc
Growing traffic in
platform vs AWS

97. 111
2019
Addressed critical
cross-functional
needs (GDPR,
security, alerts +
SLOs as a service)
Adoption by HMRT
(Highest Maturity
& Revenue Team)
2017
Infra platform
started with few
services
First customer
(centralized
logging, metrics,
auto scaling)
2018
Started using SLAs
and SLOs, clarifying
reliability/latency/etc
Growing traffic in
platform vs AWS

98. 112
Flow of change

99. Case
Study
113

100. Case
Study
114
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOjdXeGp44E

101. Case
Study
115
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOjdXeGp44E

102. 116
https://engineering.atspotify.com/2020/08/27/how-we-improved-developer-productivity-for-our-devops-teams/

103. What is “Platform as a
Product” and why should I
adopt this approach?
117

104. 118
A platform is optional to
use - no team is forced to
use the platform

105. 119
A platform is carefully
designed and curated

106. 120
A platform simplifies
something for users

107. 121
A platform evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes

108. 122
A platform uses modern
product management
(and service management)

109. 123
Happier users (engineers)
No technology bloat
Designed to evolve

110. Getting Started
with
Platform as a Product
124

111. How well can the team understand the
platform abstractions they need to use
on a regular basis?
1 - Assess cognitive load
125
github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-Cognitive-Load-Assessment

112. What does your platform actually do?
Is this what users need?
What is the UX/DevEx of using the
platform? What should it be?
2 - Define your platform
126

113. Who is responsible for what? Who is
impacted? How do you collaborate on
new platform internal services?
Collaboration vs X-as-a-Service
3 - Team Interactions
127

114. Zalando Kubernetes at Zalando
Mercedes DevOps Adoption at Mercedes-Benz.io
Twilio Platforms at Twilio: Unlocking Developer Effectiveness
Adidas Where Cloud Native Meets the Sporting Goods Industry
ITV ITV's Common Platform v2 Better, Faster, Cheaper, Happier
MAN Truck & Bus How to Manage Cloud Infrastructure at MAN Truck & Bus
Farfetch UX I DevOps - The Trojan Horse for Implementing a DevOps Culture
More platform examples
128

115. 129
https://techbeacon.com/devops/how-reduce-cognitive-load-increase-flow-5-real-world-examples
How to reduce cognitive load and
increase flow: 5 real-world examples

116. Infographics
● Getting Started
● In a Nutshell
130
teamtopologies.com/infographics

117. Resources
131
teamtopologies.com/resources
(links, slides, video)
teamtopologies.com/tools
(templates, assessments, etc)

118. academy.teamtopologies.com

119. TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Team Topologies
Partner Program
🤝
partners@teamtopologies.com

120. 134
Manuel Pais
FlowOnRails
Twitter: @manupaisable
LinkedIn: manuelpais
Matthew Skelton
Conflux
Twitter: @matthewpskelton
LinkedIn: matthewskelton
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