Conway's Law states that organizations will inevitably produce systems that mirror their internal communication structures. This document discusses how to organize teams to avoid this by limiting cognitive load, aligning teams with business streams, and defining clear team APIs. It suggests starting by assessing a team's existing cognitive load, whether work streams are misaligned, and if there are large mismatches between team interactions and architecture. Providing resources on these topics can help teams get started with the right organizational structures.

1. TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Conway’s Law
Is Out to Get You!
26th April 2022
Manuel Pais
@manupaisable

2. Team Topologies
2
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press, 2019
teamtopologies.com/book

3. “innovative tools and concepts for
structuring the next generation
digital operating model”
Charles T. Betz,
Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
3

4. Remote Team Interactions
Workbook
4
Using Team Topologies
Patterns for Remote Working
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press, 2022
Available to pre-order now
teamtopologies.com/workbook

5. “extends the original book with
valuable exercises to setup your
teams effectively for a
Remote First world”
Stefan van Oirschot,
Chief Digital Advisor at Red Hat
5

6. 6
Conway’s Law
Team Cognitive Load
Stream-Aligned Teams
Team API

7. Conway’s Law
9

8. “Any organization that designs a
system (defined broadly) will
produce a design whose structure is
a copy of the organization's
communication structure.”
– Mel Conway, 1968
10

9. 11

10. 12

11. 13
Reverse
Conway
Image from Max Pixel

12. 14

13. 15

14. 16
Organization design
is a constraint on the
“solution search space”

15. Team Cognitive Load
17

16. “Software that
fits in your head”
- Daniel Terhorst-North
18
https://speakerdeck.com/tastapod/microservices-software-that-fits-in-your-head?slide=62

17. 19
“Software that
fits in our heads”

18. 4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’
20
lead time
deployment frequency
mean time to restore (MTTR)
change fail percentage

19. COGNITIVE LOAD:
The total amount of
mental effort being used
in the working memory
- John Sweller
21

20. COGNITIVE LOAD
From a software
delivery team POV
22

21. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
23
“How are
classes
defined in
Java?”

22. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
24
“How do I
deploy this
app,
again?”

23. Intrinsic
Extraneous
Germane
25
“How do
bank
transfers
work?”

24. Intrinsic (skills)
Extraneous (mechanism)
Germane (domain focus)
26

25. (Intrinsic)
] Extraneous [
Germane
27

26. COGNITIVE LOAD
From a PMO POV ???
28

27. (Intrinsic)
] Extraneous [
Germane
29

28. COGNITIVE LOAD
From a software
delivery team POV
30

29. Limit the size of software
services/products to the
cognitive load that the
team can handle.
31

30. 32
Unbounded cognitive load

31. 33
https://twitter.com/RobMeaney/status/1189928318499471368

32. Assess cognitive load
34
https://forms.gle/UD4e1uGzwnrikCDYA

33. Stream-Aligned
Teams
35

34. 36

35. 37

36. 38
Business Alignment
Image from Max Pixel

37. 39

38. 40
Feature

39. 41

40. 42
F
e
a
t
u
r
e

41. 43
Team ownership must include:
Releasability
Testability
Operability / Supportability

42. 44
Each service must be fully
owned by a team with
sufficient cognitive capacity
to build and operate it.

43. 45
autonomy

44. 46
competences

45. 47
How to alleviate the tension between:
team autonomy (increases flow)
and
lack of competences (decreases flow)

47. 49

48. 50
The success of supporting
teams is the success of
stream-aligned teams

49. 51

50. 52

51. Team API
53

52. Team API
54
● Code & artifacts owned by the team
● Versioning & testing approach
● Wiki and documentation
● Ways of working
● Roadmap & priorities
● Communication preferences (when/how)

53. “For effective team-first ownership
of software, teams need to
continuously define, advertise, test,
and evolve their Team API”
Team Topologies, p.48
55

54. 56
https://github.com/TeamTopologies/Team-API-template

55. 57
Conway’s Law
Team Cognitive Load
Stream-Aligned Teams
Team API

56. Getting started
58

57. Getting started
59
Explicit cognitive load

58. How well can the team as a unit “grok”
the systems they own and develop?
Explicit cognitive load
60

59. Push some things into a Platform?
Explicit cognitive load
61

60. Are skills or capabilities missing?
Explicit cognitive load
62

61. Getting started
63
Explicit cognitive load
Misaligned work streams
Team Interactions
Thinnest Viable Platform

62. Does it frequently take three or more
teams to change a single user journey?
Misaligned work streams
64

63. Are development teams assumed to
know and comply with regulations?
Misaligned work streams
65

64. Is “cost reduction” the holy grail?
Misaligned work streams
66

65. Getting started
67
Large Conway mismatches

66. Are there major mismatches between
the team interactions and the required
software / system architecture?
Large Conway mismatches
68

67. What could be easily adjusted?
Large Conway mismatches
69

68. Getting started
70
Explicit cognitive load
Misaligned work streams
Large Conway mismatches

69. Infographics
● Getting Started
● In a Nutshell
71
teamtopologies.com/infographics

70. Resources
72
teamtopologies.com/resources
(links, slides, video)
teamtopologies.com/tools
(templates, assessments, etc)

71. academy.teamtopologies.com

72. 74
Manuel Pais
FlowOnRails
Twitter: @manupaisable
LinkedIn: manuelpais
Matthew Skelton
Conflux
Twitter: @matthewpskelton
LinkedIn: matthewskelton
Copyright © Conflux Digital Ltd and Manuel Pais 2018-2022. All rights reserved.
teamtopologies.com