This Team Topologies talk covers the issues around identifying, limiting and addressing cognitive load for cross-functional stream-aligned teams.

1. TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Manuel Pais
@manupaisable

2. Team Topologies
2
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press

4. Team Cognitive Load
CI/CD
infrastructure
security

5. coding
testing deploying
security
infrastructure
operations
CI/CD
arch &
design

6. “Great products emerge from
empowered, fully cross-functional
teams.”
– John Cutler, 2019
6

7. coding
testing deploying
security
infrastructure
operations
CI/CD
arch &
design

8. coding
testing deploying
security
infrastructure
operations
CI/CD
arch &
design
building the
product right

9. Team Cognitive Load
UX
metrics

10. coding
testing deploying
security
infrastructure
operations
CI/CD
arch &
design
UX
cust satisfaction
metrics
product
viability
QA

11. Team Cognitive Load
product viability
QA
customer
satisfaction

12. coding
testing deploying
security
infrastructure
operations
CI/CD
arch &
design
UX
monitor
metrics
product
viability
QA
building the
right product

13. “Despite striving to be
cross-functional, one of the thornier
problems product teams often face is
lacking some necessary
competence.”
– Peter Neumark, 2015
13

15. Team Cognitive Load
15

16. COGNITIVE LOAD:
The total amount of mental
effort being used in the
working memory
- John Sweller
16

17. COGNITIVE LOAD
From a SW delivery
team perspective
17

18. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
18
“How are
classes
defined in
Java?”

19. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
19
“How do I
deploy this
app,
again?”

20. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
20
“How do
bank
transfers
work?”

21. Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanism)
Germane (domain focus)
21

22. (Intrinsic)
] Extraneous [
Germane
22

23. Taming Cognitive Load
23
Explicit cognitive load

24. 24
Each service must be fully
owned by a team with
sufficient cognitive capacity
to build and operate it.

25. Assess cognitive load
25
https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-Cognitive-Load-Assessment

26. Taming Cognitive Load
26
Explicit cognitive load
Team-sized software

27. Limit the size of software
services/products to the
cognitive load that the
team can handle.
27

28. 28

29. Taming Cognitive Load
29
Explicit cognitive load
Team-sized software
Adequate team topologies

30. topology
the way in which constituent parts are
interrelated or arranged
Greek: τοπολογία (τόπος == ‘place’)
30

31. 4 fundamental topologies
31
Stream-aligned team

32. 32

33. 33
For fast flow, we expect most teams in
the organization to be
(value) stream-aligned
with end-to-end ownership

34. 4 fundamental topologies
34
Stream-aligned team
Enabling team

35. 35
Enabling teams reduce the learning
curve for new team capabilities
by teaching and mentoring

36. 4 fundamental topologies
36
Stream-aligned team
Enabling team
Platform team

37. 37
Platform teams provide services that
enable stream-aligned teams to deliver
work with substantial autonomy

38. “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
38

39. “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
39

40. 4 fundamental topologies
40
Stream-aligned team
Enabling team
Platform team
Complicated subsystem team

41. 41
Complicated subsystem teams build
and evolve part of a system which
requires specialized, PhD type of
knowledge

42. 4 fundamental topologies
42
Flow of change

43. 3 core interaction modes
43
Flow of change
X-as-a-Service
Facilitating
Collaboration

44. 44
Team Interaction Modes
Collaboration: 2 teams working together
X-as-a-Service: 1 provides, 1 consumes
Facilitating: 1 team helps another

45. 45
When used with care, these are the only
four fundamental topologies and team
interaction modes needed to build and
run modern software systems.

46. Taming Cognitive Load
46
Explicit cognitive load
Team-sized software
Adequate team topologies

48. Free workbook coming soon
Team Topologies
for Remote Teams
48
for Remote
Teams
Sign up for news: teamtopologies.com/newsletter
Remote-first Team Interactions video:
youtube.com/watch?v=iQ6JfBt_rc4

49. Free Resources
49
teamtopologies.com/resources
(links, slides, video)
github.com/teamtopologies
(templates, assessments, etc)

50. TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Sign up for news and tips:
TeamTopologies.com

51. Thank you!
51
Matthew Skelton, Conflux
@matthewpskelton
Manuel Pais, Independent
@manupaisable
teamtopologies.com
@teamtopologies