Why are so many organizations stuck in the “middle” of DevOps evolution? What’s preventing them from achieving higher levels of performance despite all the automation, tooling, and good practices in place? Puppet’s State of DevOps Report 2021 provides important research-based clues to answer these questions, supported by the patterns and recommendations in Team Topologies. In this talk we cover the self-imposed limitations of blindly following some “myths” around DevOps. Almost 80% of organizations are stuck in the “frozen middle” of DevOps evolution because of lack of organizational sensemaking abilities. The margin for growth for these organizations is tremendous, but they need to think beyond technical capabilities to unlock the potential of their teams to deliver with more autonomy and a sense of purpose. The data shows that Team Topologies provides the necessary organizational and team interaction patterns that help organizations achieve performance metrics such as delivering a new customer change request to live in under one hour, or diagnosing and recovering from a serious issue in production in under an hour. Fundamentally, we need to supercharge the fundamental principles of DevOps: fast feedback loops, minimal waste, removing bottlenecks, and continuous learning & improvement.

1. TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Frozen DevOps?
The not-so-technical
Last Mile
Manuel Pais
co-author of Team Topologies
DevOpsDays Portugal 2022
@manupaisable

2. Team Topologies
5
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press, 2019
teamtopologies.com/book

3. Remote Team Interactions
Workbook
7
Using Team Topologies
Patterns for Remote Working
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press, 2022
teamtopologies.com/workbook

4. “Team Topologies provides a practical
set of templates for addressing the key
DevOps question that others leave as
an exercise for the student”
- Jeff Sussna
8

5. 9
DevOps

6. 10
2018 → Early Majority
2019 → Late Majority
2020 → Late Majority
2021 → Late Majority
2022 → Late Majority
InfoQ Trends - “General DevOps”

7. 11
https://puppet.com/resources/report/2021-state-of-devops-report

8. 12
“Success at scale requires optimizing
not for the individual, and not for the
team, but for the wider organization -
the “team of teams”.
Highly evolved organizations have
discovered the patterns that work
well for a fast flow of change”

9. 13
Low performing orgs
2018 = 11%
2019 = 7%
2020 = 5%
2021 = 4%

10. 14
High performing orgs
2018 = 10%
2019 = 14%
2020 = 16%
2021 = 18%

11. 15
Mid performing orgs
2018 = 79%
2019 = 79%
2020 = 79%
2021 = 78%

12. 16
Mid perf
2018 = 79%
2019 = 79%
2020 = 79%
2021 = 78%

13. 17

14. Why are so many
organizations frozen
in the DevOps middle?
21

15. 22
We have Cloud, CI/CD,
SRE & Observability
Mid perf

16. 23
“Organizations should not expect to
become highly evolved just because
they use cloud and automation…
They are held back by organizational
structure and dynamics”

17. ⏳ ⏳
Blocking
Non-
Blocking
Cloud Infra Deploy

18. 25

19. “Devops was always as much about
org structure and incentives as any of
the technical details.”
- Andrew Clay Shafer
26

20. 27
Organizations where teams have
strong identities that are well
understood, with clearly defined
responsibilities, are far more likely to
be higher performing

21. 29
We have Cloud, CI/CD,
SRE & Observability
Mid perf

22. We have teams with a
clear mission and purpose
that is understood by
other teams
30
High perf

23. 31
Everyone collaborates
with everyone else
Mid perf

24. 32
“Collaboration is expensive
[for real-time work]…
it’s not scalable or repeatable. ”

25. 33

26. 34

27. 35

28. 36
“if you simply adopt the team types,
you’re missing one of the key
takeaways... which is paying attention
and being deliberate about teams’
setup and their desired interaction”

29. 37
Everyone collaborates
with everyone else
Mid perf

30. We welcome purposeful
interactions that have
clear goals and duration
38
High perf

31. Case
Study
39
“DevOps Over Coffee - Adidas”

32. Case
Study
40

33. 41
We have fully autonomous
“build & run” teams
Mid perf

34. 42
“If cognitive load is left “unbounded”
then… performance metrics will be
negatively affected, preventing teams
from evolving to higher levels”

35. 43

36. 45
A valuable platform
reduces the cognitive load
of stream-aligned teams.

37. “Cognitive load is the total
amount of mental effort
being used in the working
memory”
- John Sweller
46

38. Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanism)
Germane (domain focus)
47

39. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
48
“How do I
deploy this
app,
again?”

40. (Intrinsic)
] Extraneous [
Germane
49

41. 50
extraneous cognitive load
for stream-aligned teams
germane cognitive load
for platform teams
→

42. 51

43. 52

44. 53
“Highly evolved firms use a
combination of stream-aligned
and platform teams as the
most effective way to
manage cognitive load at scale”

45. 54
We have fully autonomous
“build & run” teams
Mid perf

46. 55
https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar
Apr 2021

47. 57
Adopt: Platform
engineering product
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

48. We have an ecosystem of
loosely coupled teams that
promotes fast flow &
continuous learning
58
High perf

49. Case
Study
59
teamtopologies.com/examples

50. 60
Flow of change

51. 61
Flow of change

52. 62
We have a platform team
that solves common
problems for teams
Mid perf

53. 63
“the existence of a platform team
does not inherently unlock
higher evolution DevOps”

54. “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
64
Source: https://martinfowler.com/articles/talk-about-platforms.html

55. 65
“Successful platform teams treat
their platform as a product. They
strive to create a compelling value
proposition for application teams”

56. But what is
“Platform as a Product”?
66

57. 67
A (platform as a) product
is optional to use -
no team is forced to use it

58. “Any time standards, practices,
processes, frameworks, or
architectures become a mandate, I’ve
seen little to no adoption.”
- Courtney Kissler
68

59. 69
A (platform as a) product is
carefully designed and
curated for its customers

60. 70
A (platform as a) product
evolves to take advantage
of technology changes

61. 71
A (platform as a) product
uses modern product
management & follows
the adoption lifecycle

62. 72
Happier users (engineers)
No technology bloat
Designed for cognitive load

63. 73
“[Highly evolved platform teams]
understand their internal customers
and offer a curated set of
technologies for infrastructure and
development capabilities”

64. 74

65. 75
Platform engineering is
not replacing DevOps, but
rather enabling its goals

66. 76
We have a platform team
that solves common
problems for teams
Mid perf

67. 77
https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar
Apr 2022

68. 78
Hold: Platform
engineering product
teams
“We’re seeing the ‘platform
team’ label applied to teams
dedicated to projects that don’t
have clear outcomes or a
well-defined set of customers.”
-- ThoughtWorks Tech Radar, Vol.26, p.18

69. We treat the platform as a
product, a curated
experience for our users
79
High perf

70. Platform as a Product is hard work!
80
● Metrics are stacked against you
● Customer-centricity mindset takes time
● Trust is hard to gain (esp in remote context)
● Adoption lifecycle = “you’re never done”
● Shared services legacy that doesn’t go away

71. Case
Study
81

72. 82
“the key to escaping the middle
phase is a successful platform team
approach, which makes sense given the
fact that implementing a platform
approach well requires well-defined
team responsibilities and interactions”

73. Resources
83
teamtopologies.com/resources
(links, slides, video)
teamtopologies.com/examples
(uSwitch, WealthWizards & more)

74. academy.teamtopologies.com

75. ○ Platform Value
○ Platform Customers
○ Platform Experience
○ Platform Adoption Cycle
TT25 - Platform as a Product
85
Promo code DODPT2022 = 15% OFF
on all courses & bundles

76. 88
Manuel Pais
FlowOnRails
Twitter: @manupaisable
LinkedIn: manuelpais
Matthew Skelton
Conflux
Twitter: @matthewpskelton
LinkedIn: matthewskelton
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