In the new remote-first and hybrid workplace, many organizations are struggling to catch up with new tooling and ways of working. Many are discovering for the first time that the physical office was covering up poorly defined teams and poorly defined areas of focus, threatening their DevOps transformation efforts and the overall health and success of their business.
Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais, coauthors of the highly successful Team Topologies, provide proven patterns for a successful remote-first approach to teams. Using simple tools for dependency tracking and patterns from Team Topologies, such as the Team API, organizations will find that well-defined team interactions are key to effective IT delivery in the remote-first world.
This workbook explores several aspects of team-first remote work, including:
How the new remote-first world is highlighting existing poor team interactions within organizations.
Why organizations should use the Team API pattern to define and communicate the focus of teams.
How organizations can track and remove team-level dependencies.
How and why organizations should design inter-team communications consciously.
How and why organizations can use the three team interaction modes from Team Topologies (collaboration, x-as-a-service, and facilitating) to help.
The ideas and patterns presented here will help your organization become more effective with a team-based, remote-first approach to building and running software systems.
| Preface |
|
vii | |
| Introduction |
|
ix | |
| A Brief Overview of Team Topologies |
|
ix | |
| How to Use This Workbook |
|
x | |
|
Chapter 1 Overview: Focus on Remote Team Interactions |
|
|
1 | (6) |
|
What Does an Organization Need in Order to Thrive in a Remote-First World? |
|
|
1 | (2) |
|
Resource: Cognitive Load Assessment |
|
|
3 | (1) |
|
Use the Team API Approach to Define and Communicate Responsibilities and Team Focus |
|
|
4 | (1) |
|
Track Dependencies Using Simple Tools and Remove Blocking Dependencies |
|
|
4 | (1) |
|
Overcommunicate Using Just Enough Written Documentation |
|
|
5 | (1) |
|
Summary: Design and Define the Ways in Which Teams Interact |
|
|
6 | (1) |
|
Chapter 2 Team Dependencies |
|
|
7 | (16) |
|
|
|
7 | (4) |
|
Resource: Team API Exercise |
|
|
11 | (3) |
|
|
|
14 | (3) |
|
Resource: Team Dependencies Tracking Exercise |
|
|
17 | (1) |
|
Building Networks: Coffee, Talks, Internal Conferences |
|
|
18 | (5) |
|
Chapter 3 Setting Team Boundaries |
|
|
23 | (14) |
|
|
|
23 | (3) |
|
Resource: Trust Boundaries Exercise |
|
|
26 | (1) |
|
|
|
27 | (5) |
|
Resource: Online Space Assessment |
|
|
32 | (2) |
|
Team-Focused Conventions for Chat Tools |
|
|
34 | (3) |
|
Chapter 4 Purposeful Interactions |
|
|
37 | (18) |
|
Team Interaction Modes: A Review |
|
|
37 | (6) |
|
Listening to Team Interactions |
|
|
43 | (4) |
|
Clarity Communication Purpose and Channels |
|
|
47 | (2) |
|
Ensuring Clarity of Purpose of Platforms and Services |
|
|
49 | (4) |
|
Resource: Example Wiki Page: Thinnest Viable Platform Template |
|
|
53 | (2) |
|
|
|
55 | (12) |
|
Design and Conduct a Developer Experience Platform Survey |
|
|
55 | (2) |
|
Define Naming and Usage Conventions for Chat Tools |
|
|
57 | (1) |
|
Use the Team API with Multiple Teams to Define and Clarify Team Boundaries |
|
|
58 | (1) |
|
Devise and Share an Execution Plan |
|
|
58 | (3) |
|
|
|
61 | (2) |
|
|
|
63 | (4) |
| About the Authors |
|
67 | (1) |
| About Team Topologies |
|
68 | |
Matthew Skelton has been building, deploying, and operating commercial software systems since 1998. Head of Consulting at Conflux, he specializes in Continuous Delivery, operability and organization design for software in manufacturing, ecommerce, and online services, including cloud, IoT, and embedded software. He currently lives in the UK.
Manuel Pais is a DevOps and Delivery Coach and Consultant, focused on teams and flow first. He helps organizations adopt test automation and continuous delivery, as well as understand DevOps from both technical and human perspectives. Manuel has been in the industry since 2000, having worked in Belgium, Portugal, Spain, and the UK. He currently lives in Madrid, Spain.
