How and why to design your teams for modern software - Sheffield DevOps - July 2017
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The document presents insights on designing effective teams for modern software systems, emphasizing the importance of alignment between organizational structure and software architecture as per Conway's Law. It discusses cognitive load management for teams and outlines different team topologies suitable for various organizational contexts. The author advocates for tailored team configurations to improve business agility and emphasizes that successful outcomes also depend on culture and clear business vision.
How and why to design your teams for modern software - Sheffield DevOps - July 2017
- 1. How and why to design your teams for modern software systems Matthew Skelton | Skelton Thatcher Consulting @matthewpskelton | skeltonthatcher.com Sheffield DevOps meetup - @SheffieldDevOps 13 July 2017, Sheffield UK
- 2. Today •Conway’s Law (or heuristic) •Cognitive Load for teams •Real-world Team Topologies •Guidelines for team design
- 3. About me Matthew Skelton @matthewpskelton Co-founder at Skelton Thatcher Consulting skeltonthatcher.com
- 4. Organisation design for effective software systems Tutorial / Workshop Weds 25 October 2017, London training@skeltonthatcher.com
- 5. Books
- 6. Team-first digital transformation 30+ organisations UK, US, DE, India, China skeltonthatcher.com
- 8. How and why to design your teams for modern software systems
- 9. Safer, more rapid changes to software systems (Business Agility)
- 10. TEAM
- 13. (assumption) the team is stable, slowly changing, and long-lived #NoProjects
- 14. Conway’s Law (or Conway’s Heuristic)
- 15. “organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations” – Mel Conway, 1968 http://www.melconway.com/Home/Conways_Law.html
- 16. “if the architecture of the system and the architecture of the organization are at odds, the architecture of the organization wins” – Ruth Malan, 2008 http://traceinthesand.com/blog/2008/02/13/conways-law/
- 17. “We find strong evidence to support the hypothesis that a product’s architecture tends to mirror the structure of the organization in which it is developed.” – MacCormack et al, 2012 MacCormack, Alan, Carliss Y. Baldwin, and John Rusnak. ‘Exploring the Duality Between Product and Organizational Architectures: A Test of the “Mirroring” Hypothesis’, 1 October 2012. http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=43260.
- 18. homomorphic force (#Conway #Yawnoc) HT @allankellynet (same) (shape)
- 20. ‘Reverse Conway’ Tobbe Gyllebring (@drunkcod)
- 21. A B A B
- 23. Design the organisation architecture to produce the right software architecture
- 25. Cognitive load the total amount of mental effort being used in the working memory (see Sweller, 1988)
- 26. Cognitive load Intrinsic Extraneous (Irrelevant ) Germane (Relevant)
- 27. ‘Hacking Your Head’: Jo Pearce See http://www.slideshare.net/JoPearce5/hacking-your-head-managing-information-overload-45-mix @jdpearce
- 28. We have SCIENCE!
- 29. Science since 1988 • Driskell et al, 1999 ‘Does Stress Lead to a Loss of Team Perspective?’ Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 3, no. 4 (1999): 291. • Fan et al, 2010 ‘Learning HMM-Based Cognitive Load Models for Supporting Human-Agent Teamwork’. Cognitive Systems Research 11, no. 1 (2010): 108–119. • Ilgen & Hollenbeck, 1993 ‘Effective Team Performance under Stress and Normal Conditions: An Experimental Paradigm, Theory and Data for Studying Team Decision Making in Hierarchical Teams with Distributed Expertise’. DTIC Document, 1993. • Johnston et al, 2002 ‘Application of Cognitive Load Theory to Developing a Measure of Team Decision Efficiency’. DTIC Document, 2002. • Sweller, John, 1994 ‘Cognitive Load Theory, Learning Difficulty, and Instructional Design’. Learning and Instruction 4 (1994): 295–312. • Sweller, John, 1988. ‘Cognitive Load during Problem Solving: Effects on Learning’. Cognitive Science 12, no. 2 (1988): 257–285.
- 30. “stress impacts team performance … by narrowing or weakening the team-level perspective required for effective team behavior.” – Driskell et al, 1999 Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 1999, Vol. 3, No. 4,291-302
- 31. (not just ‘pop’ science!)
- 32. High-performing teams are hugely effective Optimise for the team
- 33. Match the team responsibility to the cognitive load that the team can handle
- 36. There is no single ‘right’ team topology, but several ‘bad’ topologies for any one organisation
- 38. Collaboration vs X-as-a-Service Collaboration X-as-a-Service devopstopologies.com
- 39. Collaboration vs X-as-a-Service Collaboration X-as-a-Service devopstopologies.com Rapid discovery No hand-offs Comms overheads? Ownership clarity Less context needed Slower innovation?
- 40. Supporting & Business Domain Supporting Business Domain devopstopologies.com
- 41. Inner Topologies Collaboration XaaS Within any group there may be internal collaborations AND other X- as-a-Service (XaaS) relationships devopstopologies.com
- 42. Team types Component team Platform / ’substrate’ team Supporting / ‘productivity’ team Product/Feature team devopstopologies.com
- 43. Team configuration devopstopologies.com Platform / ’substrate’ team Product/Feature team
- 44. Team configuration Component team Platform / ’substrate’ team Product/Feature team devopstopologies.com
- 45. Team configuration Component team Platform / ’substrate’ team Product/Feature team Supporting / ‘productivity’ team devopstopologies.com
- 46. Discovery vs. Predictability Team 1 Team 2 Team N Discovery, rapid learning Predictable delivery devopstopologies.com
- 47. Established platform (PaaS) Predictable delivery devopstopologies.com
- 48. Evolution of team topologies devopstopologies.com DISCOVER ESTABLISH
- 49. Evolution of team topologies Team 2 Discover Discover Team N Team 3 Use Use devopstopologies.com Team 1 Establish Establish …
- 50. Evolve different team topologies for different parts of the organisation at different times to match the team purpose and context
- 51. Summary
- 53. Design the organisation architecture to produce the right software architecture
- 54. “stress impacts team performance … by narrowing or weakening the team-level perspective required for effective team behavior.” – Driskell et al, 1999 Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 1999, Vol. 3, No. 4,291-302
- 55. Match the team responsibility to the cognitive load that the team can handle
- 57. There is no single ‘right’ team topology, but several ‘bad’ topologies for any one organisation
- 58. Team configuration Component team Platform / ’substrate’ team Product/Feature team Supporting / ‘productivity’ team devopstopologies.com
- 59. Evolution of team topologies Team 2 Discover Discover Team N Team 3 Use Use devopstopologies.com Team 1 Establish Establish …
- 60. Evolve different team topologies for different parts of the organisation at different times to match the team purpose and context
- 61. Caution
- 62. Team topologies alone will not produce effective software systems
- 63. Also needed: culture, good engineering, sane funding models, clarity of business vision
- 64. Safer, more rapid changes to software systems (Business Agility)
- 65. teamtopologies.com Upcoming book: Team Topologies for effective software systems by Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
- 66. Organisation design for effective software systems Tutorial / Workshop Weds 25 October 2017, London training@skeltonthatcher.com
- 67. thank you Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais @SkeltonThatcher skeltonthatcher.com