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
Puppetize - 19 November 2020
@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
9Source: 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

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

16. 17
treat the platform as a
product (reliable, usable, fit
for purpose) for voluntary
internal customers
Platform as a Product

17. “Create a path of
least resistance.
Make the right thing
the easiest thing to do.”
– Evan Bottcher, 2018
18

18. 19

19. 20

20. 21

21. 22

22. 23
Team Cognitive Load

23. “Cognitive load is the total
amount of mental effort
being used in the working
memory”
- John Sweller
24

24. Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanism)
Germane (domain focus)
25

25. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
26
“How are
classes
defined in
Java?”

26. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
27
“How do I
deploy this
app,
again?”

27. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
28
“How do
bank
transfers
work?”

28. Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanics)
Germane (domain focus)
29

29. (Intrinsic)
] Extraneous [
Germane
30

30. The platform should not
*increase* the cognitive load
on teams using the platform
35

31. 36
Thinnest Viable Platform

32. 37
Thinnest Viable Platform
smallest set of APIs, documentation,
and tools needed to accelerate teams
developing modern software services
and systems

33. 38

34. “software developers love building
platforms and, without strong product
management input, will create a
bigger platform than needed.”
- Allan Kelly
39

35. 40
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

36. A good platform is just
“big enough” but no bigger
41

37. 42
Platform evolution via
Team Interaction Modes

38. 43

39. 44
strong collaboration with
stream-aligned teams for
any new service or evolution
Platform Behaviors

40. 45

41. 46
provide support and great
documentation for stable
services
Platform Behaviors

42. 47

43. 48

44. Clarify (platform) service
boundaries and provide
abstractions to reduce the
cognitive load on teams.
49

45. 50
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

46. What really is a
Product?
51

47. “product (...) is anything that can be
offered to a market to satisfy the
desire or need of a customer”
- Wikipedia
52Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_(business)

48. Product = Holistic User Experience
➔ Functionality
➔ Design
➔ Monetization
➔ Content
– Marty Cagan, 2010
53Source: https://svpg.com/defining-product/

49. 54

50. 55
A product is optional to
use - no-one is forced to
use the product

51. 56

52. 57
A product is carefully
designed and curated

53. 58

54. 59
A product simplifies
something for users

55. 60

56. 61
A product evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes

57. 62
A platform is a curated
experience for engineers
(the customers of the
platform).

58. 63
A platform is optional to
use - no team is forced to
use the platform

59. 64
Platforms must advocate
for their platform
product and “market” it
to internal teams

60. 65
A platform is carefully
designed and curated

61. 66
Platforms must be
designed with the user in
mind (internal teams) -
focus on UX and DevEx

62. 67
A platform simplifies
something for users

63. 68
Platforms must help
users to achieve goals by
understanding user
needs and simplifying
tasks

64. 69
A platform evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes

65. 70
Platforms must evolve
the capabilities they
offer (adding/removing)
with a clear roadmap or
trajectory

66. 71
A platform uses modern
product management
(and service management)

67. 72

68. 73
A platform needs modern
product management
(and service management)
as demonstrated by SaaS
companies

69. 74
product metrics
Platform Metrics

70. 4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
75
lead time
deployment frequency
mean time to restore (MTTR)
change fail percentage

71. 76
product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
Platform Metrics

72. 77

73. 78
product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
adoption & engagement metrics
Platform Metrics

74. 79

75. 80
product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
adoption & engagement metrics
reliability metrics
Platform Metrics

76. 82
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

77. 83
The success of platform
teams is the success of
stream-aligned teams

78. Examples:
Platform as a Product
84

79. CaseStudy
85

80. 86
Source: https://teamtopologies.com/industry-examples/organizational-evolution-accelerating-delivery-of-comparison-services-uswitch
Organizational evolution for
accelerating delivery of
comparison services at Uswitch

81. 87
Low-level AWS service calls (EC2, IAM, STS, Autoscaling, etc.) from January 2015 to January 2017

82. “We didn’t change our organization
because we wanted to use
Kubernetes, we used Kubernetes
because we wanted to change
our organization.”
- Paul Ingles
88

83. 89
Low-level AWS service calls since Kubernetes adoption in January 2017

84. 91
enable stream-aligned
teams to deliver work
autonomously with
self-service capabilities ...
Platform Purpose

85. 92
… in order to reduce
extraneous cognitive load
on stream-aligned teams
Platform Purpose

86. “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
94

87. Treat the platform
as a product
95

88. Reliable
Fit for Purpose
Focused on DevEx
96

89. “Kubernetes helps us in a few ways:
- Application-focused abstractions
- Operate and configure clusters to
minimise coordination ”
- Paul Ingles 100

90. 104
2018
Infra platform
started with few
services
First customer
(centralized
logging, metrics,
auto scaling)

91. 105
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

92. 106
...
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

93. 107
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

94. CaseStudy
108

95. CaseStudy
109https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOjdXeGp44E

96. CaseStudy
110https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOjdXeGp44E

97. 111
https://engineering.atspotify.com/2020/08/27/how-we-improved-developer-productivity-for-our-devops-teams/

98. What is “Platform as a
Product” and why should I
adopt this approach?
112

99. 113
A platform is optional to
use - no team is forced to
use the platform

100. 114
A platform is carefully
designed and curated

101. 115
A platform simplifies
something for users

102. 116
A platform evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes

103. 117
A platform uses modern
product management
(and service management)

104. 118
Happier users (engineers)
No technology bloat
Designed to evolve

105. Getting Started
with
Platform as a Product
119

106. How well can the team understand the
platform abstractions they need to use
on a regular basis?
1 - Assess cognitive load
120
github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-Cognitive-Load-Assessment

107. 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
121

108. 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
122

109. 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
123

110. 124
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

111. Resources
125
teamtopologies.com/resources
(links, slides, video)
github.com/teamtopologies
(templates, assessments, etc)

112. Thank you!
info@teamtopologies.com
126
Matthew Skelton, Conflux
@matthewpskelton
Manuel Pais, Independent
@manupaisable
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