This page is not created by, affiliated with, or supported by Slack Technologies, Inc.
I missed this book club unfortunately but have had a burning question that might be best asked here anyway... several times since reading the book I've found myself trying to visualise parts of my organisations structures the Team Topologies way, and I've wished there was some nice tool that would allow one to create a a rich and editable view of an organisation this way (given our typical org chart is a managerial driven hierarchical view, is not product centric at all and is outside my scope to change! ). Something like (but better than) below, in particular the bottom part of the image which is similar to illustrations in the book itself. Anybody know of anything even close to be reusable and extendable for this purpose (and added bonus is that its UI managed so teams could self-describe), thanks in advance 🙂
Hi @aidan.moriarty - thanks for this question ☝️ Manuel and I are in the process of creating various templates for online tools (Miro, Google Slides, http://diagrams.net etc. with some native Team Topologies shapes. The shapes in the online tools don't match exactly what's in the book but they are close: We plan to release the templates soon - probably July or August. Here is a screenshot of our Miro board with TT shapes
Thanks @UNK3E4Y1M that would be a great start for sure. What I want to be able to present my leadership (with ease which isn't the case today) is a true (and ideally live) view of how all their resources are truly aligned, which I think would work wonders to convince people of the need to redefine and realign resources better. Theres a clear sentiment that we don't have good visibility today but its difficult to see the way out of that. I'll continue to do it manually in smaller segments anyway and see what you guys release next 🙂
Hi Aidan. Having a real time live view is quite hard simply because team topologies and interactions are mostly about behaviors.
We've def seen many cases where a team might say "we're a platform team" but they're not really behaving in a modern platform way.
And vice-versa teams that say they are an "infrastructure team" but they're actually providing self-service capabilities and abstractions just like a modern platform team.
MEaning that you always need to assess this through conversations. The diagrams are a starting point for meaningful discussions, not an end by themselves that we can automate away.
They are visuals to drive conversations around needs and evolution.
Therefore, sounds like it you're already doing the right thing - take a "snapshot" of your current landscape, visualize with the diagrams and present to management to highlight issues that need to be addressed. 👍
Agree with all of the above Manuel 🙂 Maybe its a pipe dream to have a live view when the real focus is just using a static analysis of the current state in order to be able to work out the future state. As you describe, many teams have a self-perception that is skewed or unrealistic for many genuine reasons. Seeing the truth can only help them (and their leaders) to realise the need for change.
Btw, if you need guinea pigs for anything up and coming, I'd happily volunteer some of our teams. Just from conversation alone I've a feeling they could end up generating some fascinating topology diagrams 😃
well, we're always looking for new industry examples - if you don't mind getting in touch via <mailto:info@teamtopologies.com|info@teamtopologies.com> ?
Hi all. We now have some Team Shape templates available: • Google Slides • PowerPoint • Miro • http://diagrams.net https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-Shape-Templates (A bit later than we had planned, but we've been totally amazed by the interest in TT 🙂 ) NOTE: we expect a couple of minor updates to the shapes in the next few days but the general patterns and guidance are ready to use. :large_yellow_square: ⚛️ 🔶 :large_blue_square: //// 🔺 :large_green_circle: :thumbsup: