Team Topologies Guided Workshop - Define and evolve a Platform - P803
Workshop outcomes
Understand how and why internal platforms are essential for modern software delivery
Map some key user needs that the platform should meet, then explore the user needs with User Needs Mapping
Find some candidate separate streams inside the platform using Independent Service Heuristics
Map out the Developer Experience (DX) around potential new platform streams
Explore some new roles and capabilities that would support fast flow
Workshop format
The workshop is run across 3 separate 3-hour sessions, with each session on a different day:
Session 1 - Map existing activities and capabilities
Session 2 - Identify user needs and candidate product streams
Session 3 - Towards “Platform-as-a-Product” - new roles and capabilities + wrap-up
We recommend that these sessions are run in the same week: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. This helps to keep the material and ideas “front of mind” for attendees whilst giving some space for reflection (and normal work activities).
The workshops are delivered by authorised Team Topologies partners.
Are your internal platforms optimized for fast flow and Developer Experience?
In many organizations, internal platforms have a bad name. Historically, internal platforms meant slow, cumbersome, ticket-based access to a bewildering array of difficult-to-use services and systems with little consideration for the effect on teams using the platform.
In contrast, successful internal platforms based on Team Topologies principles explicitly provide a curated experience for internal teams using the platform, reducing team cognitive load, and enabling a fast flow of software changes towards live production systems.
Getting to this place of high effectiveness starts with understanding user needs and defining the scope and focus of the platform. From there, we can adopt product management practices for the platform itself and start to evolve the platform offering in line with changes in available technologies in the wider ecosystem.
Bring definition and clarity to your platform
The purpose of this guided workshop is to help you to define and evolve an internal platform. It will help you to understand the current capabilities and services, then map these onto actual user needs, exploring some improved service boundaries based on domain and product heuristics. Workshop attendees will then be guided through the implications of “platform-as-a-product” and the changes in capabilities and skills needed for success.
Screenshot of the P803 Miro board
Share your insights to inspire change
The guided workshops generate the clarity you need to ‘spark the change’ you are looking for in your organization. The workshops provide a clear picture of your current platform challenges and a range of options for the next steps on your journey, articulated in terms of your current (and possible future) organization.
All of the discoveries are captured in a PDF that can be easily distributed with colleagues to facilitate further discussion about how you can begin to affect the change you desire within your organization.
What type of organization is the workshop aimed at?
This guided workshop is aimed at organizations with more than 50 but less than 500 people within their organizational unit. These numbers are based upon Dunbar’s trust boundaries. If you have an organizational unit that is larger than 500 people, we would recommend “zooming in” to a smaller organizational unit, repeating the workshop for each group up to around 500 people. Note: each workshop session has a maximum of 12 attendees.
Who should attend the workshops?
To get the best out of the workshops we recommend that you invite people within the platform and also internal customers: you need both insider and internal customer perspectives on the platform to be effective at a good platform definition. Each attendee will play a pivotal role in contributing to the definition and evolution process. Attendees could include:
CIO/CTO (or Office of CTO), Head of Engineering, Head of IT, managers, lead architects, lead software developers, platform engineers, product owners from inside and outside the platform, agile coaches, representatives from Community of Practice or Center of Excellence, and so on.
There is a maximum of 15 people attending the workshops to keep discussions fluid.
How should you prepare for the workshop?
To prepare for the workshop, we suggest that everyone:
reads the infographics at https://teamtopologies.com/infographics
watches one or more videos at https://teamtopologies.com/talks, especially the talk on Platform as a Product: https://teamtopologies.com/videos-slides/what-is-platform-as-a-product-clues-from-team-topologies
brings enthusiasm and a willingness to contribute!
