Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow

Clarity of business vision: the executive or leadership provides a clear, non-conflicting vision and direction for the rest of the organization, with horizons at human-relevant timescales (such as three months, six months, twelve months) and clear reasoning behind the priorities, so people in the organization can understand how and why these were chosen.

Software cannot be expected to grow and thrive—even with excellent patterns for pruning and planting provided by Team Topologies—if the environmental conditions are hostile.

What does the team need in order to: Act and operate as an effective team? Own part of the software effectively? Focus on meeting the needs of users? Reduce unnecessary cognitive load? Consume and provide software and information to other teams?

Stream-aligned teams should be aligned to the streams you identify. These high-level streams should match the “change pressure” from the core of your organization.

a platform can be “just big enough” to meet the flow needs for the streams:

Remember: technology is only ever a part of the platform; roadmaps, guided evolution, clear documentation, a concern for DevEx, and appropriate encapsulation of underlying complexity are all key parts of an effective delivery platform for stream-aligned teams.

you need people who understand and practice: Team coaching Mentoring (especially of senior staff) Service management (for all kinds of teams and areas, not just for production systems) Well-written documentation Process improvement

No serious sports team would consider not employing coaches and trainers, and no serious organization should be without coaches and trainers either.