1.
TeamTopologies.com
@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

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Matthew Skelton
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Co-author of the book Team Topologies
Founder at Conflux - confluxhq.com
Twitter: @matthewpskelton
LinkedIn: matthewskelton

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Team Topologies
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Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press (2019)
teamtopologies.com/book

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“innovative tools and concepts for
structuring the next generation
digital operating model”
Charles T. Betz,
Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
5

5.
What is “Platform as a
Product” and why should I
adopt this approach?
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What is a Platform?
What really is a Product?
Examples: P-as-a-P
Getting Started

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What is a Platform?
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“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
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Source: https://martinfowler.com/articles/talk-about-platforms.html

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“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

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“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

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
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https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar
May 2020

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Adopt: Applying product
management to internal
platforms
Trial: Platform engineering
product teams

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“...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

15.
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https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar
Apr 2021

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Adopt: Platform
engineering product teams
Hold: Layered platform
teams [split by technology]

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“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

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A platform is a curated
experience for engineers
(the customers of the
platform).

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treat the platform as a
product (reliable, usable, fit
for purpose) for voluntary
internal customers
Platform as a Product

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“Create a path of
least resistance.
Make the right thing
the easiest thing to do.”
– Evan Bottcher, 2018
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Team Cognitive Load

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“Cognitive load is the total
amount of mental effort
being used in the working
memory”
- John Sweller
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Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanism)
Germane (domain focus)
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28.
Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
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“How are
classes
defined in
Java?”

29.
Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
30
“How do I
deploy this
app,
again?”

30.
Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
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“How do
bank
transfers
work?”

31.
Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanics)
Germane (domain focus)
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(Intrinsic)
] Extraneous [
Germane
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More: ‘Hacking Your Head’
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Jo Pearce
(@jdpearce)
https://www.slideshare.net/JoPearce5/hacking-your-head-managing-information-overload-extended

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The platform should not
*increase* the cognitive load
on teams using the platform
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Thinnest Viable Platform

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40

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Thinnest Viable Platform
smallest set of APIs, documentation,
and tools needed to accelerate teams
developing modern software services
and systems

38.
“software developers love building
platforms and, without strong product
management input, will create a
bigger platform than needed.”
- Allan Kelly
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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

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A good platform is just
“big enough” but no bigger
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Platform evolution via
Team Interaction Modes

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strong collaboration with
stream-aligned teams for
any new service or evolution
Platform Behaviors

44.
48

45.
49

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provide support and great
documentation for stable
services
Platform Behaviors

47.
51

48.
Clarify (platform) service
boundaries and provide
abstractions to reduce the
cognitive load on teams.
52

49.
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

50.
What really is a
Product?
54

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“product (...) is anything that can
be offered to a market to satisfy
the desire or need of a customer”
- Wikipedia
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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_(business)

52.
Product = Holistic User Experience
➔ Functionality
➔ Design
➔ Monetization
➔ Content
– Marty Cagan, 2010
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Source: https://svpg.com/defining-product/

53.
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54.
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A product is optional to
use - no-one is forced to
use the product

55.
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A product is carefully
designed and curated

57.
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A product simplifies
something for users

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60.
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A product evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes

61.
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A platform is a curated
experience for engineers
(the customers of the
platform).

62.
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A platform is optional to
use - no team is forced to
use the platform

63.
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Platforms must advocate
for their platform
product and “market” it
to internal teams

64.
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A platform is carefully
designed and curated

65.
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Platforms must be
designed with the user in
mind (internal teams) -
focus on UX and DevEx

66.
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A platform simplifies
something for users

67.
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Platforms must help
users to achieve goals by
understanding user
needs and simplifying
tasks

68.
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A platform evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes

69.
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Platforms must evolve
the capabilities they
offer (adding/removing)
with a clear roadmap or
trajectory

70.
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A platform uses modern
product management
(and service management)

71.
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A platform needs modern
product management
(and service management)
as demonstrated by SaaS
companies

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product metrics
Platform Metrics

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4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
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lead time
deployment frequency
mean time to restore (MTTR)
change fail percentage

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product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
Platform Metrics

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product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
adoption & engagement metrics
Platform Metrics

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product metrics
user satisfaction metrics
adoption & engagement metrics
reliability metrics
Platform Metrics

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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

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The success of platform
teams is the success of
stream-aligned teams

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Examples:
Platform as a Product
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Case
Study
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Source: https://teamtopologies.com/industry-examples/organizational-evolution-accelerating-delivery-of-comparison-services-uswitch
Organizational evolution for
accelerating delivery of
comparison services at Uswitch

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Flow of change

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Low-level AWS service calls (EC2, IAM, STS, Autoscaling, etc.) from January 2015 to January 2017

87.
“We didn’t change our organization
because we wanted to use
Kubernetes, we used Kubernetes
because we wanted to change
our organization.”
- Paul Ingles
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Low-level AWS service calls since Kubernetes adoption in January 2017

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enable stream-aligned
teams to deliver work
autonomously with
self-service capabilities ...
Platform Purpose

90.
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… in order to reduce
extraneous cognitive load
on stream-aligned teams
Platform Purpose

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“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

92.
Treat the platform
as a product
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93.
Reliable
Fit for Purpose
Focused on DevEx
100

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“Kubernetes helps us in a few ways:
- Application-focused abstractions
- Operate and configure clusters to
minimise coordination ”
- Paul Ingles 104

95.
108
2018
Infra platform
started with few
services
First customer
(centralized
logging, metrics,
auto scaling)

96.
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

97.
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

98.
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

99.
112
Flow of change

100.
Case
Study
113

101.
Case
Study
114
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOjdXeGp44E

102.
Case
Study
115
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOjdXeGp44E

103.
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https://engineering.atspotify.com/2020/08/27/how-we-improved-developer-productivity-for-our-devops-teams/

104.
What is “Platform as a
Product” and why should I
adopt this approach?
117

105.
118
A platform is optional to
use - no team is forced to
use the platform

106.
119
A platform is carefully
designed and curated

107.
120
A platform simplifies
something for users

108.
121
A platform evolves to take
advantage of technology
changes

109.
122
A platform uses modern
product management
(and service management)

110.
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Happier users (engineers)
No technology bloat
Designed to evolve

111.
Getting Started
with
Platform as a Product
124

112.
How well can the team understand the
platform abstractions they need to use
on a regular basis?
1 - Assess cognitive load
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github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-Cognitive-Load-Assessment

113.
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

114.
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

115.
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

116.
What’s next?
129

117.
Platform as a Product - online learning
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academy.teamtopologies.com

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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

119.
Infographics
● Getting Started
● In a Nutshell
132
teamtopologies.com/infographics

120.
Resources
133
teamtopologies.com/resources
(links, slides, video)
teamtopologies.com/tools
(templates, assessments, etc)

121.
academy.teamtopologies.com

122.
TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Team Topologies
Partner Program
🤝
partners@teamtopologies.com

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