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MILLER’S LAW
The number of objects an average
human can hold in working memory
is 7 ± 2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two
10. “
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Working here is so painful. I wish
management would do their job and
fix it.
— Angry Ex-colleague
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Our goal is to evolve the
software architecture to meet
market demand faster than
our competitors.
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TEAMS & SW ARCH. MUST COEVOLVE
Teams
Software Architecture
Customers
Build and evolve
Provides value to
Indicate raised
expectations to
The System of Work
The System of Software
The Market
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DOG FOOD CONTEXT GOAL
We don’t want to optimise our flow,
we want to have the same
experience as customers in order
to grow our strategic capabilities.
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DOG FOOD ECONOMICS
• ROI is not the goal - making a loss may be
acceptable
• Feedback to improve core products is the
goal
• Dog food context can grow into a product
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DOG FOOD POLITICS
• Every team wants to build the star
product not a loss leader
(But it can evolve into a bona-fide product)
• Managers may use deceptive motivational
techniques
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DOG FOOD TECHNOLOGY
• Freedom to use any technology
(to simulate the customer experience)
• Try out new tech in production
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OCTOPUS ECONOMICS
• High levels of coordination can impact
flow in many teams
• For compliance scenarios, it is about
protecting rather than generating revenue
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OCTOPUS POLITICS
• Nobody wants to slow down feature
delivery for somebody else’s roadmap
• High levels of synchronous alignment
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OCTOPUS TECHNOLOGY
• Try to centralise complexity in the
Octopus
• Technology standardisation can help
• A bit of integration design up front can
save a lot of politics in the future
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SLICE AND SCALE
• Adapt to changing consumer expectation
• Team may not want to lose responsibility
• A tight technical coupling may be hard to
break - analyse market and anticipate
evolution (see Wardley Maps)
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SLICE AND SCATTER
• Expensive change - be sure it’s worth it
• Breaking up a team is not easy
• Software may be hard to decompose - a
rewrite may be necessary
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SLICE AND MERGE
• Ensure rate of co-change justifies change
• Warning: Now there are 3 teams to
coordinate
• Technical separation may be painful
53. “
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…multiple teams are unavoidable
and it reduces effectiveness. How can
we design teams so that the most
important outcomes are affected the
least?
— Sriram Narayan (@sriramnarayan)
54. ntcoding
Model the domain to reveal
inherent dependencies that
can turn into organisational
bottlenecks.
