Organizations that do not adapt rapidly to the modern, highly-changeable business environment are failing, and failing in large numbers. Increased regulation, pressures from climate change, shifting of energy sources, digitalization, and (recently) the COVID-19 pandemic are all driving a need for business agility in organizations of all sizes. In this talk, we’ll explore how the patterns and principles from Team Topologies promote true business agility through a rapid flow of software change, fast feedback from running systems, a strong drive for loose coupling, and an awareness of sociotechnical mirroring. Combined with a product mindset and techniques from Domain-driven Design, the Team Topologies approach is helping organizations around the world to adapt to the “new normal” and achieve true business agility.

1. TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Accelerating Flow with
Team Topologies & Friends
Manuel Pais
co-author of Team Topologies
Wroclaw Kanban Lean & Coffee - 5 Jun 2023

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

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

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

5. “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

6. 7
What is business agility?
Being agile, not doing ‘Agile’
Valuable: product mindset
Team Topologies example

7. What is
business agility?
9

8. Business Agility: the ability
to respond rapidly* to
changing internal and
external conditions (* in hours)

9. 11
Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash
Remote-first

10. 12
Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash
Speed of change:
technology, climate,
geopolitical

11. 13
Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash
Increased
global and local
competition

12. Questions to answer
How do we optimize for a
fast flow of change?

13. Questions to answer
How do we make sure we
focus on user needs?

14. Questions to answer
How do we easily
‘course-correct’ when we
need to adjust?

15. Fast flow is a prerequisite
for business agility

16. 29
What is business agility?
Being agile, not doing ‘Agile’
Valuable: product mindset
Team Topologies example

17. Being agile,
not doing ‘Agile’

18. 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

19. 37
4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
Lead Time
Deployment Frequency
Mean Time To Restore
Change Fail Percentage

20. 38
Fast feedback via
deployment pipelines

21. 39
Good technical
practices (TDD, …)

22. 40
Configuration in
version control

23. 41
Cloud-native:
high observability
quick recovery

24. 42
Cloud-native:
designed for
automation

25. 43
Continuous
testing
performance
scanning
deployment
monitoring
right-sizing
integration

26. 44
https://puppet.com/resources/report/2021-state-of-devops-report

27. 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”

28. 46
Team ownership of
software & services

29. 47
Re-aligned
architecture

30. 49
Domain-driven design
(DDD)
Untangle business concepts for
faster flow

31. 51
Wardley Maps
Increase situational awareness
and apply the right techniques -
custom/product/utility

32. 53
Dynamic Reteaming
Reshape orgs using proven
patterns and a socially minded
approach to team changes

33. 55
Team Topologies
Fast flow, rapid feedback, team
interactions, org evolution, team
cognitive load, ...

34. 56
Rapid flow of change

35. 57
Rapid feedback from
running systems

36. 58
Handovers kill flow

38. 60

39. 61

40. 62
Flow of change

41. 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”

42. 🔍
Track dependencies and
separate “blocking” from
“non-blocking”
64

43. ⏳ ⏳
Blocking
Non-
Blocking

44. Remove barriers to flow:
hand-offs, approval gates,
manual inspections
Replace with self-service APIs
66

45. ⚠
Compliance mindset shift:
Permitting to Enabling
67

46. 68

47. Compliance
as Code
(API)
70
Flow of change
Domain
experts as
Enabling
team for
compliance /
governance

48. 71
What is business agility?
Being agile, not doing ‘Agile’
Valuable: product mindset
Team Topologies example

49. The value of a
product mindset

50. Product:
Holistic User Experience
Functionality + Design + Monetization + Content
– Marty Cagan, 2010
73
Source: https://svpg.com/defining-product/

51. 74

52. 75
A product is optional to
use - no-one is forced to
use the product

53. 76

54. 77
A product is carefully
designed and curated

55. 78

56. 79
A product simplifies
something for users

57. 80

58. 81
A product evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes

59. A strong focus on
user needs drives
good software
#UX

60. The software should
‘get out of the way’ -
design for usability

61. ⚠
Platform mindset shift:
Product Management
for internal platforms
84

62. 85

63. 86
A platform is optional to
use - no team is forced to
use the platform

64. Platforms must advocate for their
platform product and “market” it to
internal teams
(User Personas, UX, talking...)
Internal Marketing
87

65. 88
A platform is a curated
experience for engineers
(the customers of the
platform).

66. 89
What is business agility?
Being agile, not doing ‘Agile’
Valuable: product mindset
Team Topologies example

67. Team Topologies
example

68. Case studies in the TT book
91

69. 92
...

70. Industry examples
since book publication
94
teamtopologies.com/examples

72. Case
Study
98

73. ● Founded 2005
● 70 stores in the UK
● £260m revenue
● 2500 employees
● 2019: changes to make IT
more responsive
99

74. High fragmentation of work and focus
100
J
a
n
2
0
1
9

75. Identify boundaries - business domain
101
m
i
d
-
2
0
1
9

76. 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

77. Align to Team Topologies concepts
104
A
u
g
2
0
1
9

78. Adopt the Thinnest Viable Platform
105
F
e
b
2
0
2
0
Static data fine
to begin with:
shops rarely
move!

79. Combine with Wardley Mapping
106
J
a
n
2
0
2
0

80. Clarity of purpose from team types
108
F
e
b
2
0
2
0

81. Concepts
● Stream-aligned (business domain)
● Thinnest Viable Platform
● Evolving teams and interactions
● Combine with Wardley Mapping
109

82. Results
● Product Mgt superpowers
● Effective comms during COVID-19
● Responsive, self-sufficient teams
110
teamtopologies.com/examples

83. Thanks to:
Paul Martin
IT Director, Footasylum
Andy Norton
Software Development
Manager, Footasylum
112

84. 141
What is business agility?
Being agile, not doing ‘Agile’
Valuable: product mindset
Team Topologies example

85. Respond rapidly to
changing external and
internal conditions

86. Situational awareness,
clarity of business purpose,
good technical practices,
localised decisions

87. Strong focus on user needs
and User Experience (UX),
clear costs, viability,
mission, ...

88. How does Team Topologies
help with business and
technical agility?
146

89. Team Topologies
encourages decoupling of
business concepts to help
make the organization
more responsive

90. Team Topologies patterns
help to turn blocking
compliance checks into
self-service, flow-aligned,
API-driven checks

91. Team Topologies is partly a
sense-making approach to
help organizations gain
situational awareness and
therefore agility

92. Team Topologies helps the
organization to focus
tightly on its core mission
via streams and limiting
team cognitive load

93. What next?
151

94. Free Resources
152
teamtopologies.com/learn
(infographics, key concepts, talks)
teamtopologies.com/tools
(Team API, cognitive load, etc)

95. Infographics
● Getting Started
● In a Nutshell
153
teamtopologies.com/infographics

96. academy.teamtopologies.com

97. 15% off
with code
kanban15

98. 156
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