Stef Cuisinier has introduced us to Team Topologies and his view on how it integrates with other models such as SAFe, LeSS, Sociocracy and Holacracy.
What is the purpose of the team?
Team Topologies is based on the idea that work transmitted to another team takes an order of magnitude longer to get finished. The complexity of interactions and cognitive load place an upper limit on team size, though, so interfaces between teams and handovers are inevitable. This requires a smart design of your teams and their roles.
The best results are achieved by 'stream-aligned' teams, which function in the value stream and are part of the flow (as described in SAFe). Those teams function best if they are long-lived, multi-functional, and supported in their self-organization.
Applying the insights
After Stef's introduction, we used the newly acquired insights to discuss how we could use it to help optimize the organization of one of our customers.
Designing the team topology does not just reflect the current needs, but must be adaptable to take care of changes.
We discussed designing a workshop similar to the SAFe DevOps workshop but potentially broader in scope by including non-IT teams.