Why and How to Align Autonomous Teams

1. Situation

You are leading an organization of 100 autonomous stream-aligned teams (500 people at various tech/leadership roles - Engineers, Engineering Managers, Product Managers, Program Managers). Some teams solve the same problems that other teams solved already. Increasing alignment between those some teams will increase innovation of the organization.

2. Task

Increase alignment and innovation without decreasing speed of delivery.

3. Action

Build an enablement organization that operates as an internal open source community of champions. The organization works on standards that stream-aligned teams adopt if there is a strategic fit.

4. Result

The community codify standards in libraries and services. Teams that adopt the standards increase their innovation rate and strategic alignment (if applicable). Example for standards: DevOps, Security, Compliance, and Operational Excellence (OE).

Concepts

• Stream-aligned team: aligned to a flow of work from (usually) a segment of the business domain.
• Enabling Team: helps a Stream-aligned team to overcome obstacles. Also detects missing capabilities.
• Complicated Subsystem team: where significant mathematics/calculation/technical expertise is needed.
• Platform team: a grouping of other team types that provide a compelling internal product to accelerate delivery by Stream-aligned teams.

Source: Team Topologies Key Concepts.