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Matthew Skelton
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Matthew Skelton: Team Topologies是一种组织团队以实现价值快速流动的领先方法,它关注团队和组织,虽然起源于IT领域,但实际上适用于所有知识工作。其核心在于其底层原则,而非团队类型和交互模式,其目标是实现价值的快速流动,并通过解耦多个价值流来加速这一过程。Team Topologies的原则包括:关注价值快速流动、团队规模适中以保证高信任度、以团队为最小交付单元、关注团队的认知负荷、选择利于流动的系统和组织架构、考虑康威定律的影响以及预期技术快速迭代。Team Topologies并非凭空产生,而是对现有实践的总结和提炼,它整合了诸多优秀公司的经验,并用一种易于理解的语言和方法进行了呈现。为了实现快速价值流动,Team Topologies提倡有意识地“去同步化”,避免团队之间过度协调,而是利用现代技术(如特性标志)实现价值的逐步交付。Netflix和Amazon AWS是成功实践Team Topologies的优秀案例,它们通过去同步化和规模化的方法实现了高效的价值交付。Team Topologies适用于那些真正希望赋能员工、提升组织效能的组织,而不适合那些希望实行强控制的组织。对于小型初创公司,Team Topologies的应用需要根据团队规模进行调整,在团队规模较小时,可以不必过于强调边界定义,但随着团队规模的扩大,需要开始考虑认知负荷、流程和规模化等问题。Team Topologies适用于各种类型的团队,包括研发团队和数据分析团队,其核心在于识别价值流、减少阻碍价值流动的因素以及提升团队能力。Team Topologies的起点是理解价值流,并组建能够端到端交付价值的“流对齐团队”,团队规模通常控制在8人左右,以保证高信任度和技能多样性。为了保持流对齐团队的持续快速价值流动,需要引入“赋能团队”来处理那些与核心任务无关的方面,例如安全、审计和合规性等。赋能团队不仅能帮助流对齐团队提升能力,还能在组织内识别和解决普遍存在的问题,并通过各种方式(如培训、工具或人员)来提升整体能力。对于那些非常复杂且难以处理的任务,可以将其分离到“复杂子系统团队”中,以降低流对齐团队的认知负荷,并提高其效率。认知负荷是Team Topologies中的一个核心概念,它指的是人们在工作中需要处理的信息量及其复杂程度,需要寻求平衡认知负荷和快速价值流动,并利用技术手段来降低不必要的认知负荷。可以通过TeamPitcher等工具来测量认知负荷,并结合组织文化和心理安全来确保团队能够有效地表达其面临的挑战。“平台团队”实际上更应该被称为“平台分组”,它并非一种独立的团队类型,而是一个包含多种团队类型的分组,其目标是为流对齐团队提供支持和服务。Team Topologies的实施需要循序渐进,从一个端到端的价值流开始,逐步扩展和完善。快速价值流动并不一定以牺牲代码质量和系统性能为代价,关键在于团队之间的协调和沟通,以及对认知负荷的有效管理。 Giovanni Asproni: 引导访谈,提出问题,并对Matthew Skelton的回答进行总结和确认。

Deep Dive

Key Insights

What is Team Topologies?

Team Topologies is a leading approach to organizing teams for fast flow of value, focusing on team-based organizations and applicable to all knowledge work. It emphasizes decoupling flows of value, small team sizes for high trust, managing cognitive load, and aligning with system and organizational architectures.

Why is it important to desynchronize teams instead of synchronizing them?

Synchronization doesn't scale and leads to significant inefficiencies, such as teams waiting on each other, which costs organizations millions annually. Desynchronization allows for faster delivery of value by decoupling teams and using techniques like feature flags to deliver incremental value over time.

What are the four team types in Team Topologies?

The four team types are stream-aligned teams (aligned to a value stream), enabling teams (experts who uplift other teams), complicated subsystem teams (handle highly specialized work), and platform teams (provide internal services to streamline teams).

How does Team Topologies handle cognitive load?

Cognitive load is managed by ensuring teams are small enough to maintain high trust and focus on their core mission. Complicated subsystems and enabling teams help reduce cognitive load by handling specialized tasks, allowing stream-aligned teams to focus on delivering value.

What is the role of platform teams in Team Topologies?

Platform teams provide internal services and abstractions to streamline teams, reducing their cognitive load and enabling them to focus on delivering value. They act as a grouping of teams that offer simplified access to infrastructure, security, and other shared services.

How should organizations start implementing Team Topologies?

Organizations should start with a pilot project focusing on an end-to-end value stream, such as improving a specific user journey. They should form a small stream-aligned team, identify necessary supporting teams (like platform or enabling teams), and use the pilot to learn and iterate on the approach.

What are common pitfalls when implementing Team Topologies?

Common pitfalls include taking a shallow understanding of the approach, focusing only on team structures without understanding the underlying principles, and failing to align processes, architecture, and funding with the value streams. Organizations often underestimate the cultural and organizational changes required.

How can organizations adapt Team Topologies as their needs evolve?

Organizations can use techniques like dynamic reteaming to reshape teams healthily. They should monitor for friction in interactions between teams, which signals the need to adjust boundaries or responsibilities. This approach avoids blame and focuses on continuous improvement.

Shownotes Transcript

Matthew Skelton joins host Giovanni Asproni) to talk about team topologies—an approach to organizing teams for fast flow of value. The episode starts with a description of the underlying principles before exploring the approach in more detail. From there, they discuss when to consider implementing the approach; keys to a successful implementation; and some common mistakes to avoid. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society) and IEEE Software magazine).