Team Topologies - Organizing for fast flow of value

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Newsletter (SEPTEMBER 2024): 5 Years of Team Topologies: From the Book to High-Impact Teams

Val Yonchev

Manuel Pais and Matthew Skelton, authors of Team Topologies

In the five years since Team Topologies was published, the framework has become a go-to tool for leaders looking to streamline their organizations. The book’s core concepts—stream-aligned teams, managing cognitive load, and clear interaction modes—have been widely adopted across industries, from startups to large enterprises. Case studies show that while the framework provides structure, it's flexible enough to adapt as teams and their needs evolve. Companies have particularly benefited from the emphasis on reducing cognitive load, which has helped improve delivery speed and team efficiency. 

A significant shift has been the application of Team Topologies beyond just software teams. Organizations are learning that aligning teams to value streams is essential, but it’s challenging without a clear understanding of what those value streams are. Many companies are also moving from a project to a product-centric approaches and models because they offer greater agility, reduced risk, higher value creation and accelerated learning through smaller iterations that gather user feedback more quickly. As more companies adopt a "teams of teams" model, the Team Topologies approach's ability to evolve alongside organizational changes—such as when to introduce platform or enabling teams—has proven critical. Today, practitioners continue to share insights on refining the model, keeping it relevant for high-impact team performance.

Share your experience if you have tried to apply Team Topologies in your organization.

Team Topologies is more than just a set of concepts—it's a vibrant and evolving community. In the last five years, the book has sold over 170,000 copies and has been translated into German, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. During this time, there have been over 200 talks about the concepts, with hundreds of companies transforming their operations by leveraging the concepts and more than 50+ companies—including ING, UBS, Spotify, RedHat, and Amazon—sharing how it worked for them. Over 4000 people have taken the courses offered the Team Topologies Academy, the online learning platform designed to help organizations implement and benefit from the concepts introduced in the book. Building on these concepts a tool has been created that specifically measures and manages cognitive load within teams, called Teamperature.

Get a grip of key concepts by taking one of the Team Topologies Academy courses. Use "anniversary-teamtopologies" for 20% off.

The community is supported by over 10 core team members refining the framework, and 50 advocates (and 20 more being onboarded as we speak) actively spreading its principles, finding innovative ways to apply them across various industries and organizational settings.Together with them a growing ecosystem of partners (Training partners, Solution Partners and Associated Consultancies) has emerged to facilitate the spread of knowledge and shape the application of core Team Topologies concepts globally.

Struggling to establish your teams of teams organization? Talk to us.

“It's clear that the language and practices from Team Topologies have fundamentally changed the way that software and IT teams think about value and organizing. The focus on flow and team cognitive load provides a powerful lens for decision-making, and we're starting to see this perspective being applied well outside of IT and software: in marketing, sales, support centres, legal services, healthcare, and beyond.

We anticipate that by 2029 - 10 years after the Team Topologies book was published - that the ideas will be used to reshape and streamline entire organizations, and that's where our efforts are focused now: helping to create high-impact team-of-teams organizations.” Manuel Pais and Matthew Skelton, authors of Team Topologies

What’s Coming Up Next?

We are constantly on the lookout for events related to Team Topologies and the principles it embodies. Check all of the upcoming ones in our events section and do let us know if you missed any.

Have we missed an event around Team Topologies? Let us know.

Team Topologies Beyond the Book

As Team Topologies expands its reach across different business and technology domains, we're honing our focus on areas where we can make the most impact. We keep expanding with new practices and content to help the adoption journeys. Our goal is to guide, support, and equip leaders and organizations with the tools they need to create more human-centered workplaces and accelerate their results. Currently, we're concentrating on:

If you'd like to share your experiences or need assistance, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Join the Community

As we are getting closer to launching the Team Topologies community we would love to hear your thoughts on potential topics for the working groups. Let us know what you think via this short survey.

Join the Team Topologies Community, a free space launching in autumn 2024, to connect with peers and experts on modern team-of-teams practices like Agile, DevOps, and Platform Engineering. Sign up now to stay updated and be part of this transformative movement.

We are happy to enrich the practice of Team Topologies with new ideas and best practices. This is why the community plays a crucial role in ever-evolving. A warm welcome to our newest members:

If you're passionate about Team Topologies and want to become an advocate, we would love to have you join us. Or, if you have a story to share, we would be honored to feature it on the website.

Was this newsletter useful? Please share your thoughts on how we can make it better. Send us an email. 

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