Newsletter (april 2025): Team Topologies decoded: 5 practitioners, 5 powerful insights from the CNCF platforms workgroup

Written By Ana Ciobotaru
 
 
 

This edition was curated by Bryan Ross



The Collective Wisdom of Team Topologies Practitioners

The true power of Team Topologies emerges not in academic discussion but in its practical application across diverse organizational contexts. In this newsletter series, we bring together the voices of several practitioners from the CNCF Platforms Working Group who have implemented Team Topologies principles in their organizations. Through their experiences—ranging from Bryan Ross' restaurant analogy for platform teams to Matt Menzenski's connection with Deep Work philosophy—a comprehensive picture emerges of how Team Topologies transforms organizational effectiveness by focusing on team cognitive load, clear interaction patterns, and service-oriented platforms. These complementary perspectives demonstrate that whether you're restructuring platform teams, mapping team interactions, or connecting individual and organizational productivity, Team Topologies provides a cohesive framework for driving meaningful improvement in how technology organizations deliver value.

Moving beyond theory to organizational impact

Team Topologies has emerged as a transformative framework for organizational design in technology organizations. As Bryan Ross notes, "If The Phoenix Project was the book that brought DevOps to life, then Team Topologies is the book you need to truly understand Platform Engineering." This insight reflects how Team Topologies has given practitioners a shared language to discuss what truly matters in modern software delivery.

This language is critical because it allows us to address the fundamental challenge that all our contributors encountered: how to structure teams for optimal flow and effectiveness in increasingly complex technical environments. Each contributor approached this challenge through a different lens, yet all found Team Topologies principles invaluable in navigating their unique organizational contexts.

The human element in technical systems

While our industry has evolved from waterfall to agile, from monoliths to microservices, and from physical servers to Kubernetes, one fundamental truth remains constant: effective software delivery depends on human collaboration more than technological sophistication.

"No matter how advanced our tools become, success hinges on how we shape our teams and the culture that supports them." - Graziano Casto

This perspective aligns perfectly with Team Topologies' core premise that cognitive load management and team interactions are the primary determinants of delivery performance. Casto's observation connects directly to Dipesh Patel's Die Hard analogy and Steve Fenton's visualization work—all three highlight how team structures and interactions determine system outcomes more than technical choices.

Reimagining platform teams as service providers

One of the most powerful applications of Team Topologies emerges in the reconceptualization of platform teams. Bryan Ross presents a compelling restaurant analogy that captures the essence of effective platform teams:

"They bring in ingredients from various suppliers, mix them together into something tasty, and provide an environment to enhance the customer's consumption."

This service-oriented mindset transforms how platform teams operate, yet organizations frequently lose sight of this principle in practice. When platform teams abandon this service mentality, they encounter predictable challenges that Patel identified in his Die Hard comparison—heroics replace systems, and firefighting becomes the norm rather than the exception.

"The best platform teams don't rely on heroics—they build systems that prevent fires before they start."

Together, Ross and Patel's perspectives demonstrate how Team Topologies' platform team pattern creates sustainable service delivery rather than dependency on individual expertise or effort—a theme that resonates with Menzenski's observations about cognitive load management.

Simple visualization, powerful results

The practical power of Team Topologies often lies in its simplicity, as Steve Fenton demonstrates by using just the interaction modes to transform team relationships:

"Each arrow we added fundamentally changed how we worked and how people responded to our work."

This visualization approach connects directly to Ross's platform service model—both rely on making implicit relationships explicit. Similarly, Patel's emphasis on prevention over heroics demonstrates what happens when these relationships are clearly defined and optimized. These three perspectives show different facets of the same underlying principle: clarity in team boundaries and interactions creates predictable, sustainable delivery flow.

Connecting individual and organizational flow

Matt Menzenski's connection between Team Topologies and Cal Newport's Deep Work philosophy completes the picture by linking organizational patterns to individual effectiveness:

"Deep Work is to individual value creation what Team Topologies is to organizational value creation."

This insight brings us full circle to Casto's emphasis on human factors in technical systems. The cognitive load management that Team Topologies emphasizes at the organizational level mirrors the focus management that Deep Work advocates at the individual level. Both Ross's service platform model and Fenton's visualization techniques ultimately serve this same goal—reducing cognitive burden to enable focused, effective work.

The common thread: people-centered design

What unites these diverse perspectives is the recognition that Team Topologies is fundamentally about people. The technical challenges we face in software development cannot be solved by technology alone—they require thoughtful attention to how we organize ourselves.

Effective implementation of Team Topologies requires addressing the human aspects that all our contributors highlighted through their different lenses:

  1. Recognizing teams as the fundamental unit of delivery (emphasized by Casto)

  2. Designing team boundaries to optimize cognitive load (demonstrated by Menzenski)

  3. Establishing clear interaction patterns between teams (illustrated by Fenton)

  4. Creating platforms that truly serve their consumers (modeled by Ross)

  5. Building systems that prevent rather than react to problems (advocated by Patel)

Looking ahead

These practitioners' stories collectively demonstrate that Team Topologies delivers measurable improvements across diverse organizational contexts. The framework provides both a common language and adaptable patterns that address the human aspects of software delivery.

In upcoming newsletters, we'll explore each contributor's experience in greater depth, extracting specific patterns and practices you can apply in your own organization. Whether you're visualizing team interactions, reimagining platform teams as service providers, finding inspiration in action movies, or connecting organizational patterns with personal productivity, Team Topologies offers practical tools for transforming how your teams work together.

For those looking to dive deeper, the Team Topologies Academy offers structured self-paced

You can join the platforms working group meetup every two weeks or get involved in the content club by joining the #content-club channel on the CNCF slack workspace. If you are interested you can also reach out to Bryan Ross.

What are you trying to achieve?

Some readers may be here to learn more about Team Topologies, while others are already tackling specific challenges. We're working to refine our newsletter, enhance our content, and shape the second edition of our book. Your feedback will play a crucial role in guiding these efforts!

What’s coming up next?

We are gathering all Team Topologies events on our Events page and would love to hear your feedback about the ones you have attended or the ones that we have missed


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

Welcome Team Topologies advocates

We are proud to have new members joining our community of advocates:


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.

Ana Ciobotaru
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