Bureaucratic organizations: where products go to die
Unless you are clairvoyant, you can’t predict the future of your products and services. Yet, one certainty remains: they will need to evolve and improve over time. So how do you anticipate change? Are your technical and architectural choices flexible? Are your teams able to sense when change is needed, share these insights and leverage tools and practices to uncover new opportunities? And, importantly, are your organizational dynamics equipped to support you in adapting to the evolving needs of your customers and products?
Innovation thrives in an environment in which change can emerge. What does it take for an organization to enable continuous adaptation, ensuring products stay aligned with customer demands?
There is no silver bullet for innovation. Together, we uncover how Team Topologies - in combination with an array of other tools, practices and principles - challenges our conventional understanding of organizations and enables true adaptability. Let’s explore how this holistic approach, this socio-technical revolution, ushers in a new era for products and innovation.
About the speaker
Erica Engelen, Founder @The Flow Hive | Team Topologies Valued Practicioner
Erica is a Business Agility Coach, driven by a deep passion for both people and technology. She is an early adopter of Team Topologies and experienced how easy it was to establish a common language with organizations based on the concepts in the book. She has vast experience in supporting organizations in increasing their agility, resilience, and innovative power by using Team Topologies alongside other practices covering the sociotechnical system.
Working in technology for over 20 years – and especially her experience in Open Source organizations – shaped her holistic approach to business agility. True agility necessitates simultaneous improvements on technology, structure, culture, and the work itself if you aspire sustainable and impactful results.
From her personal perspective, organisations wield substantial influence over society, serving as not only role models but also impacting individual well-being. Erica firmly believes that organisations can make a more positive contribution by fostering ownership, purpose, and fulfilment among their people, by promoting collaboration and embracing diverse viewpoints, and by aligning their vision with employees' core values. With a collective of independent experts called ‘The Flow Hive’, she empowers progressive organizations to unleash team potential and optimal Flow, driving innovation and resilient growth.
Having incorporated Team Topologies into her toolkit, Erica discovered that the concept of Team Cognitive Load is pivotal when introducing new tools, platforms, shift left or changes in work methodologies within an organisation. Erica specialized in supporting organization in the adoption and scaling of Cloud technology. By focusing on how Cloud could reduce the cognitive load on developer teams - rather than just focusing on increasing velocity – the organization directly witnessed accelerated delivery because developers just loved the new platform.