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@TeamTopologies
What is
Platform as a Product?
Clues from Team Topologies
Matthew Skelton
co-author of Team Topologies
DevOps Loop by VMware Tanzu - 22 June 2022
@matthewpskelton
Matthew Skelton
2
Co-author of the book Team Topologies
Founder at Conflux - confluxhq.com
Twitter: @matthewpskelton
LinkedIn: matthewskelton
Team Topologies
4
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press (2019)
teamtopologies.com/book
“innovative tools and concepts for
structuring the next generation
digital operating model”
Charles T. Betz,
Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
5
What is “Platform as a
Product” and why should I
adopt this approach?
6
7
What is a Platform?
What really is a Product?
Examples: P-as-a-P
Getting Started
What is a Platform?
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
9
Source: https://martinfowler.com/articles/talk-about-platforms.html
“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
“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
“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
13
https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar
May 2020
14
Adopt: Applying product
management to internal
platforms
Trial: Platform engineering
product teams
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
16
https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar
Apr 2021
17
Adopt: Platform
engineering product teams
Hold: Layered platform
teams [split by technology]
18
“We’re still big fans of using
concepts from Team
Topologies as we think about
how best to organize platform
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
19
A platform is a curated
experience for engineers
(the customers of the
platform).
20
treat the platform as a
product (reliable, usable, fit
for purpose) for voluntary
internal customers
Platform as a Product
“Create a path of
least resistance.
Make the right thing
the easiest thing to do.”
– Evan Bottcher, 2018
21
22
23
24
25
26
Team Cognitive Load
“Cognitive load is the total
amount of mental effort
being used in the working
memory”
- John Sweller
27
Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanism)
Germane (domain focus)
28
Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
29
“How are
classes
defined in
Java?”
Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
30
“How do I
deploy this
app,
again?”
Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
31
“How do
bank
transfers
work?”
Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanics)
Germane (domain focus)
32
(Intrinsic)
] Extraneous [
Germane
33
More: ‘Hacking Your Head’
37
Jo Pearce
(@jdpearce)
https://www.slideshare.net/JoPearce5/hacking-your-head-managing-information-overload-extended
The platform should not
*increase* the cognitive load
on teams using the platform
38
39
Thinnest Viable Platform
40
41
Thinnest Viable Platform
smallest set of APIs, documentation,
and tools needed to accelerate teams
developing modern software services
and systems
“software developers love building
platforms and, without strong product
management input, will create a
bigger platform than needed.”
- Allan Kelly
42
43
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
A good platform is just
“big enough” but no bigger
44
45
Platform evolution via
Team Interaction Modes
46
47
strong collaboration with
stream-aligned teams for
any new service or evolution
Platform Behaviors
48
49
50
provide support and great
documentation for stable
services
Platform Behaviors
51
Clarify (platform) service
boundaries and provide
abstractions to reduce the
cognitive load on teams.
52
53
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
What really is a
Product?
54
“product (...) is anything that can
be offered to a market to satisfy
the desire or need of a customer”
- Wikipedia
55
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_(business)
Product = Holistic User Experience
➔ Functionality
➔ Design
➔ Monetization
➔ Content
– Marty Cagan, 2010
56
Source: https://svpg.com/defining-product/
57
58
A product is optional to
use - no-one is forced to
use the product
59
60
A product is carefully
designed and curated
61
62
A product simplifies
something for users
63
64
A product evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes
65
A platform is a curated
experience for engineers
(the customers of the
platform).
66
A platform is optional to
use - no team is forced to
use the platform
67
Platforms must advocate
for their platform
product and “market” it
to internal teams
68
A platform is carefully
designed and curated
69
Platforms must be
designed with the user in
mind (internal teams) -
focus on UX and DevEx
70
A platform simplifies
something for users
71
Platforms must help
users to achieve goals by
understanding user
needs and simplifying
tasks
72
A platform evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes
73
Platforms must evolve
the capabilities they
offer (adding/removing)
with a clear roadmap or
trajectory
74
A platform uses modern
product management
(and service management)
75
76
A platform needs modern
product management
(and service management)
as demonstrated by SaaS
companies
77
product metrics
Platform Metrics
4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
78
lead time
deployment frequency
mean time to restore (MTTR)
change fail percentage
79
product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
Platform Metrics
80
81
product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
adoption & engagement metrics
Platform Metrics
82
83
product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
adoption & engagement metrics
reliability metrics
Platform Metrics
85
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
86
The success of platform
teams is the success of
stream-aligned teams
Examples:
Platform as a Product
87
Case
Study
88
89
Source: https://teamtopologies.com/industry-examples/organizational-evolution-accelerating-delivery-of-comparison-services-uswitch
Organizational evolution for
accelerating delivery of
comparison services at Uswitch
90
Flow of change
91
Low-level AWS service calls (EC2, IAM, STS, Autoscaling, etc.) from January 2015 to January 2017
“We didn’t change our organization
because we wanted to use
Kubernetes, we used Kubernetes
because we wanted to change
our organization.”
- Paul Ingles
92
93
Low-level AWS service calls since Kubernetes adoption in January 2017
95
enable stream-aligned
teams to deliver work
autonomously with
self-service capabilities ...
Platform Purpose
96
… in order to reduce
extraneous cognitive load
on stream-aligned teams
Platform Purpose
“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
98
Treat the platform
as a product
99
Reliable
Fit for Purpose
Focused on DevEx
100
“Kubernetes helps us in a few ways:
- Application-focused abstractions
- Operate and configure clusters to
minimise coordination ”
- Paul Ingles 104
108
2018
Infra platform
started with few
services
First customer
(centralized
logging, metrics,
auto scaling)
109
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
110
...
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
111
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
112
Flow of change
Case
Study
113
Case
Study
114
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOjdXeGp44E
Case
Study
115
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOjdXeGp44E
116
https://engineering.atspotify.com/2020/08/27/how-we-improved-developer-productivity-for-our-devops-teams/
What is “Platform as a
Product” and why should I
adopt this approach?
117
118
A platform is optional to
use - no team is forced to
use the platform
119
A platform is carefully
designed and curated
120
A platform simplifies
something for users
121
A platform evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes
122
A platform uses modern
product management
(and service management)
123
Happier users (engineers)
No technology bloat
Designed to evolve
Getting Started
with
Platform as a Product
124
How well can the team understand the
platform abstractions they need to use
on a regular basis?
1 - Assess cognitive load
125
github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-Cognitive-Load-Assessment
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
126
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
127
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
128
What’s next?
129
Platform as a Product - online learning
130
academy.teamtopologies.com
Remote Team Interactions
Workbook
Using Team Topologies Patterns for
Remote Working
Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais
IT Revolution, January 2022
131
Resources: teamtopologies.com/workbook
Infographics
● Getting Started
● In a Nutshell
132
teamtopologies.com/infographics
Resources
133
teamtopologies.com/resources
(links, slides, video)
teamtopologies.com/tools
(templates, assessments, etc)
academy.teamtopologies.com
TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Team Topologies
Partner Program
🤝
partners@teamtopologies.com
136
Copyright © Team Topologies Ltd 2022. All rights reserved.
teamtopologies.com

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Matthew Skelton_What is Platform as a Product_ Clues from Team Topologies - DevOps Loop 2022.pdf