Coevolving Organisational and Technical Boundaries
- 1. ntcoding Coevolving Organisational and Technical Boundaries Nick Tune
- 2. ntcoding Why is the way we design agile organisations akin to football (soccer) in the 1800s?
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- 5. ntcoding credit: Sky Sports, Opta Stats
- 7. ntcoding Help Me! I’ve caught The Spotify Model disease
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- 9. ntcoding STUCK IN THE DARK AGES • Functional silos • Meme copying • Buying “agile” / “digital transformation” software • Outsourcing all the things
- 11. ntcoding VERTICAL SLICES NO SILVER BULLET UI API UI API UI API
- 12. ntcoding TOP SOURCES OF PRODUCT IDEAS DIRECT CUSTOMER FEEDBACK 80 % TEAM BRAINSTORMING 64 % SALES TEAM 53 % EXECUTIVE ORDER 51 % % respondents who agreed. Source: Alpha UX Product Management Insights 2017
- 13. ntcoding CONTINUOUS DISCOVERY & DELIVERY Discovery Track Delivery TrackCross-functional Product Team
- 14. “ ntcoding …the organization that can most effectively accumulate new knowledge and leverage that insight to make better decisions wins — Barry O’Reilly (@barryoreilly)
- 15. ntcoding How do we design winning organisations for continuous discovery and delivery in continuously changing climates?
- 16. ntcoding CONTINUOUS ORGANISATION DESIGN 1 2 3 4 5 Purpose Landscape Climate Doctrine Leadership Acknowledgements: Simon Wardley, Wardley Maps - Business mission - User needs - Subdomains - Business processes - User journeys - Value streams - Teams - Aligned autonomy - Optimise for learning - Product disruption - New gov. legislation - Sociotechnical contexts - Sociotechnical architecture patterns
- 17. #1 PURPOSE What is the goal of the organisation design?
- 18. ntcoding CONTINUOUS ORGANISATION DESIGN Acknowledgements: Simon Wardley, Wardley Maps 1 2 3 4 5 Purpose Landscape Climate Doctrine Leadership - Business mission - User needs - Subdomains - Business processes - User journeys - Value streams - Teams - Aligned autonomy - Optimise for learning - Product disruption - New gov. legislation - Sociotechnical contexts - Sociotechnical architecture patterns
- 19. ntcoding EXAMPLE: TV BROADCASTER We need to invest in interactive TV. Our competitors have a significant advantage. 45% of video viewing for 16 - 34 year olds is via non-linear channels.* *https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/future-promising-television/1420692
- 20. #2 LANDSCAPE Modelling the existing components to produce options
- 21. ntcoding CONTINUOUS ORGANISATION DESIGN Acknowledgements: Simon Wardley, Wardley Maps 1 2 3 4 5 Purpose Landscape Climate Doctrine Leadership - Business mission - User needs - Subdomains - Business processes - User journeys - Value streams - Software systems - Teams - Aligned autonomy - Optimise for learning - Product disruption - New gov. legislation - Sociotechnical contexts - Sociotechnical architecture patterns
- 22. ntcoding If functional silos are bad, what should we align teams with?
- 23. “ ntcoding An ideal product-mode team is an empowered, outcome-oriented, business-capability aligned, cross-functional… team — Sriram Narayan (@sriramnarayan)
- 24. ntcoding WHAT ACTUALLY IS A BUSINESS CAPABILITY?
- 25. ntcoding BUSINESS CAPABILITY CAVEATS • Ignore processes -> hide dependencies • Too big for a team -> sub-capabilities? • Heavily top down • Can inhibit flow
- 26. ntcoding Dependencies in software become handovers between teams - organisational bottlenecks
- 27. ntcoding We should align to business capability type boundaries. But finding those boundaries is the hard part.
- 28. ntcoding WHERE TO PLACE TEAM BOUNDARIES? 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 Business process step User journey “Business capability” Should we align teams with user journeys, business sub- capabilities, business process steps, or something else?
- 29. ntcoding DESIGN INFLUENCE FACTORS • Business value / customer priority • Rate of change / cohesion • User experience consistency • Technical debt / technical constraints • Team size/location
- 30. ntcoding Look at the landscape from different perspectives to generate useful design options.
- 31. ntcoding SOFTWARE SYSTEMS & TEAMS UI Catalog & Rights Scheduling Rules UI Rules Based in Berlin Based in Cologne Hell Outsourced ESB
- 32. ntcoding DOMAIN-DRIVEN DESIGN Find the cohesion in your problem domain if you want teams to be autonomous
- 33. ntcoding STRATEGIC DOMAIN MODELLING ResubmitReview Renegotiate Case Management
- 34. ntcoding DDD HEURISTICS • Linguistic boundaries • Domain expert localisation • Data cohesion
- 36. “ ntcoding when the deviation between task and social interdependence increases, the deviation between optimal and actual integration of activities (coordination) increases. — Abdelghani Es-Sajjade, Terry Wilkins Design, Perception and Behavior in the Innovation Era: Revisiting the Concept of Interdependence
- 37. “ ntcoding …we suggest social interdependence theory for examining how design shapes behavior and how behavior in turn may influence design jorgdesign.springeropen.com
- 38. ntcoding Model the landscape as a system of work to analyse flow
- 40. ntcoding OTHER RECOMMENDED TECHNIQUES • Wardley value chain mapping • User journey mapping • Event storming • C4 software architecture diagramming
- 41. #3 CLIMATE Anticipating future challenges and opportunities
- 42. ntcoding CONTINUOUS ORGANISATION DESIGN Acknowledgements: Simon Wardley, Wardley Maps 1 2 3 4 5 Purpose Landscape Climate Doctrine Leadership - Business mission - User needs - Subdomains - Business processes - User journeys - Value streams - Teams - Aligned autonomy - Optimise for learning - Product disruption - New gov. legislation - Sociotechnical contexts - Sociotechnical architecture patterns
- 43. ntcoding PRODUCT EVOLUTION Products/features evolve from new and shiny to table stakes. Organisation design should adapt accordingly.
- 45. ntcoding PIVOT OF THE CENTURY? Slack started life as an internal chat system. It is now the entire business, worth $5bn. techcrunch.com/2017/07/26/slack-is-raising-a-250-million- round-at-5-billion-valuation/
- 47. ntcoding CONTINUOUS ORGANISATION DESIGN Acknowledgements: Simon Wardley, Wardley Maps 1 2 3 4 5 Purpose Landscape Climate Doctrine Leadership - Business mission - User needs - Subdomains - Business processes - User journeys - Value streams - Teams - Aligned autonomy - Optimise for learning - Product disruption - New gov. legislation - Sociotechnical contexts - Sociotechnical architecture patterns
- 48. ntcoding ALIGNED AUTONOMY Design organisations so teams have high-levels of autonomy but also high levels of alignment so they act in each other’s best interests.
- 49. ntcoding GAMING CREATES ULTRA ALIGNED AUTONOMY
- 50. #5 LEADERSHIP Using the strategic organisation design playbook
- 51. ntcoding CONTINUOUS ORGANISATION DESIGN Acknowledgements: Simon Wardley, Wardley Maps 1 2 3 4 5 Purpose Landscape Climate Doctrine Leadership - Business mission - User needs - Subdomains - Business processes - User journeys - Value streams - Teams - Aligned autonomy - Optimise for learning - Product disruption - New gov. legislation - Sociotechnical contexts - Sociotechnical architecture patterns
- 52. ntcoding SOCIOTECHNICAL CONTEXTS • Building blocks of org design • Team, purpose, & technology • Align with user journey, capability, etc. • Autonomy boundaries* UI API
- 53. “ ntcoding The performance of a system is not the sum of its parts. It's the product of its interactions. — Russell Ackoff
- 54. ntcoding SOCIOTECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE PATTERNS We cannot remove all dependencies and have 100% autonomous teams. We must design strategically.
- 55. ntcoding OPTIMISE ORG DESIGN FOR? • Discovery • Execution / delivery speed • Efficiency • Design / UX • Technical Constraints • Transformation
- 58. ntcoding ORGANISATIONAL IMPLICATIONS • Optimise for speed of discovery • Discovery team will be short-lived • Combine people from different teams • New structure will emerge / teams will evolve
- 59. ntcoding TECHNICAL IMPLICATIONS • Service boundaries may change • Lower quality MVPs • May need to build temporary integrations
- 62. ntcoding CULTURE BUBBLE • People outside the bubble may feel unimportant • Integrating with teams outside bubble requires careful management • Frequently combined with Enterprise Discovery Context
- 63. ntcoding A shared language for organisation design will help us all benefit from each other’s experiences
- 66. ntcoding EXPERTISE CONTEXT • Balance autonomy with duplicated effort • More to gain by reducing bottom line than increasing top • Candidate for new product/service • Consider buy instead of build
- 69. ntcoding CENTRALIZED PARTNERSHIP • Balance speed, autonomy & UX cohesion • Must put in the effort to understand user journeys and types • User researchers shared by teams - coordination involved
- 72. ntcoding TIGHTLY-COUPLED PARTNERSHIP • Higher coordination between partners • Try to avoid competing initiatives • Consider a temporary shared backlog • Consider micro-teams pattern • Prepare for boundary fluidity
- 76. ntcoding OTHER SOCIOTECHNICAL PATTERNS • Bubble Context • Tribe (OMG Spotify!) • External Partner Facade • OrgDesignPlaybook.com
- 77. #6 YOU CAN SHAPE THE FUTURE …of organisation design
- 78. ntcoding YOUR OPPORTUNITY • Explore patterns used in your company • Discover new patterns • Write blog posts about them • Talk at conferences and meetups • Share stories on OrgDesignPlaybook.com
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