Engineering Team Topologies
Engineering Team Topologies is an approach to organizing teams and their interactions so work can move from an idea to a useful outcome with less friction. It gives you four team types and three interaction modes for discussing boundaries, ownership, and support.
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Intro
Engineering Team Topologies
Team Topologies is an approach to designing a team-of-teams organization for fast flow of value. It gives you a small pattern language for discussing team purpose, team boundaries, and interactions between teams.
The approach is not a fixed organization chart. You use it to understand the organization you have, design a better fit for the work, and adapt that design as the work changes.
Why team design affects delivery
A software system and the organization that builds it form one sociotechnical system. People, communication paths, responsibilities, and software boundaries affect one another.
Conway's Law captures one part of this relationship: system designs tend to reflect the communication structures of the organizations that create them. A boundary on an organization chart does not stay administrative. It influences who talks, where decisions happen, and how software components connect.
Team Topologies uses that relationship as a design input. You shape team boundaries and communication paths to support the flow and architecture you need.
The second design input is cognitive load. A team can own only so much domain knowledge, technology, operational work, and coordination before delivery slows. The other team types should help a stream-aligned team keep a manageable scope.
Start with the flow of value
A stream is a continuous flow of work for a product, service, customer journey, or business capability. A stream-aligned team owns a meaningful segment of that flow.
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Sources
- https://teamtopologies.com/key-concepts
Supports
- Team Topologies as an approach to team-of-teams design for fast flow
- Definitions of the four fundamental team types
- Definitions of collaboration, X-as-a-Service, and facilitation
- Intro, slides, cheatsheet, video script, and quizzes 1 through 5
- The first reference-link rationale
- https://teamtopologies.com/key-concepts-content/team-interaction-modeling-with-team-topologies
Supports
- As-is team classification and use of an undefined team type
- Stream-aligned team behavior and supporting team purposes
- Interaction-mode selection and evolution from collaboration to X-as-a-Service
- Cognitive-load investigation and reduction options
- Intro, slides, cheatsheet, video script, and quizzes 1 through 8
- The second reference-link rationale
- https://teamtopologies.com/how-to-use-shapes
Supports
- Staged mapping of current teams, fundamental types, value flow, and interactions
- As-is assessment before target-state design
- Quizzes 6 and 8 and the third reference-link rationale
- https://teamtopologies.com/s/Finding-software-boundaries-for-fast-flow-Team-Topologies-and-Domain-Driven-Design-mini-book-MB81-v1.pdf
Supports
- Stream-aligned end-to-end responsibility and flow of change
- Platform, enabling, and complicated subsystem support for stream-aligned teams
- Connections among team boundaries, software boundaries, and Domain-Driven Design
- The fourth reference-link rationale
- https://teamtopologies.com/book
Supports
- The adaptive organizational-design model
- Four team types, three interaction patterns, cognitive load, and continuous evolution
- Conway's Law as a design concern in Team Topologies
- Quiz 8 and the fifth reference-link rationale
- https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome
Supports
- Discovery of the Awesome Engineering Strategy list
- https://github.com/aleixmorgadas/awesome-engineering-strategy
Supports
- Discovery of User Needs Mapping, DDD Crew Context Mapping, Core Domain Charts, and Fast Flow Conf
- Selection of the four Awesome Links entries
- https://userneedsmapping.com/
Supports
- User Needs Mapping as a visual approach for aligning teams around user needs and value chains
- Its use alongside Team Topologies and the first Awesome Links rationale
- https://github.com/ddd-crew/context-mapping
Supports
- Context maps for visualizing bounded-context and team relationships
- Availability of a cheat sheet and remote starter kit
- The second Awesome Links rationale
- https://github.com/ddd-crew/core-domain-charts
Supports
- Core Domain Charts for discussing domain complexity and differentiation
- The Team Topologies view with dependencies and interaction modes
- The third Awesome Links rationale
- https://www.fastflowconf.com/
Supports
- Conference focus on Team Topologies and related methods
- Practitioner case studies and prior recorded sessions
- The fourth Awesome Links rationale