Four fundamental topologies
Four fundamental topologies shown with the flow of change
Four fundamental topologies
Stream-aligned team: aligned to a flow of work from (usually) a segment of the business domain
Enabling team: helps a Stream-aligned team to overcome obstacles. Also detects missing capabilities.
Complicated Subsystem team: where significant mathematics/calculation/technical expertise is needed.
Platform team: a grouping of other team types that provide a compelling internal product to accelerate delivery by Stream-aligned teams
Four fundamental topologies - with the flow of change
The flow of change is shown left-to-right. Stream-aligned teams own an entire slice of the business domain (or other flow) end-to-end. The Stream-aligned teams are “You Built It, You Run It” teams. There are no hand-offs to other teams for any purpose.
This diagram is a snapshot in time. The team relationships WILL change as new goals are set and the teams discover new things.
3 team interaction modes
Three team interaction modes
There are only three ways in which team should interact:
Collaboration: working together for a defined period of time to discover new things (APIs, practices, technologies, etc.)
X-as-a-Service: one team provides and one team consumes something “as a Service”
Facilitation: one team helps and mentors another team
To learn more about key ideas from Team Topologies like the four types of teams, the three core interaction modes, the platform as a product approach, or how to align teams with true value streams, have a look at the self-paced Team Topologies Distilled course on the Team Topologies Academy.
Further details - articles and videos
Infographics on Team Topologies
