crichardson, 1 year ago

@TeamTopologies

What is 'work'? Is it development work or business work?

And what does 'aligned to' mean?

And is there any relationship with that unspeakably-not-agile-process which distinguishes between operational value streams and development value streams?

Asking for a friend. 😀

matthewskelton, 1 year ago

@crichardson

We were deliberately not specific about the nature of the work and that has proven useful, because TT is now being used in non-IT contexts like legal services, clinical care, education design, etc.

Sometimes ambiguity is best 🤓

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 1 year ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

Hmm.... what about the typical enterprise software development scenario?

matthewskelton, 1 year ago

@crichardson

In an enterprise IT context, the 'work' can be:

• software changes
• config changes to COTS
• new user onboarding
• etc.

Pretty much any flow of regular similar activity.

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 1 year ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

Thanks for the clarification.

What about the definition of 'aligned to' which appears to have two meanings: (1) team aligned to a stream of work and (2) stream aligned to a domain?

Any comments?

matthewskelton, 1 year ago

@crichardson

Exactly. Most streams of work should align to a domain.

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 1 year ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

And the team is aligned with the stream, right?

Team - <aligns to> - stream - <align to> - domain

matthewskelton, 1 year ago

@crichardson

Typically, yes. Sometimes, though, teams are aligned to something else. See the section on Fracture Planes in the TT book.

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 1 year ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

Thanks. I will.

But just to be clear you appear to be saying that a stream-aligned team might not be aligned to a stream?!

Or do you mean to say that the stream (of work that the team is aligned with) is not aligned to a domain?

matthewskelton, 1 year ago

@crichardson the second. A Stream-aligned team is always (by definition) aligned to a stream of work, and that stream is typically - but not always - aligned to a domain.

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 10 months ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

I'm feeling pedantic again and want to refine the definition of 'alignment'.

Previously, we discussed how a stream-of-work was aligned to a domain or fracture plane.

But the other part of alignment is the "team aligned to a stream of work".

One definition of "aligned" is that the team does the work.

What are the other definitions?

matthewskelton, 10 months ago

@crichardson I am not sure I follow, tbh.

In my head:

Team <is aligned to> Stream of work <is aligned to> Bounded Context | Fracture Plane | User Needs | User Journey | etc.

Is there a different kind of alignment you are considering 🤔

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 10 months ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

Sorry for not being clear.

I was asking about the meaning of 'is aligned to' in "Team <is aligned to> Stream of work"

matthewskelton, 10 months ago

@crichardson yep, the team does the work for that stream of ongoing changes

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 10 months ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

Two other questions:

• How many teams can be aligned to the same stream?
• How many streams can be aligned to the same domain|fracture place|....?

I'm guess the answer to both is one, but ...

matthewskelton, 10 months ago

@crichardson In reality some streams are too big for one team, so you end up with several teams aligned to one stream of work - like a family or grouping.

Think subdomains and smaller bounded contexts, for example.

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 10 months ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

Hmm... I agree that a large stream of work with multiple teams might be necessary sometimes.

But wouldn't it be better to break up the thing-the-stream-is-aligned-to (e.g. domain) into loosely coupled subdomains.

Each of those subdomains has its own stream of work with its own team.

?

matthewskelton, 10 months ago

@crichardson Yes!!! Thank you for articulating this better than I could :)

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 5 months ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies continuing the discussion earlier....

It seems that

'stream aligned team' = 'team aligned to a stream of work'

is really saying

'team does a stream of work' = 'team does work'

or perhaps 'team' - since team implies work 🙂

crichardson, 5 months ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

ie. The work part seems redundant

Team <is aligned to> Stream of work <is aligned to> Bounded Context | Fracture Plane | User Needs | User Journey | etc.

->

Team <is aligned to> Bounded Context | Fracture Plane | User Needs | User Journey | etc.

crichardson, 5 months ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

And in a software development context, <is aligned to> could be simplified to 'develops/delivers'.

Thoughts?

matthewskelton, 5 months ago

@crichardson I have to confess that I don't really understand what you are trying to do here, Chris.

The choice of "Stream-aligned" was deliberate in order to move away from "delivery" and towards a sense of how work/value flows, not just in IT/software but also in other knowledge work contexts.

The lack of specificity is crucial.

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 5 months ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

My goal is to find simpler (and more precise) words. 😀

matthewskelton, 5 months ago

@crichardson I think there may be some use in a kind of terminology mapping of the TT terminology to different industry contexts (software, legal, HR, accounting, education, etc.).

Could that help?

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 5 months ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

That could be very useful.

However, I suspect the 'alignment' (a metaphor) is a tad fuzzy for most domains. 😀

matthewskelton, 5 months ago

@crichardson well, it's fuzzy mostly because the flow of value is unclear in many organisations. So the starting point is to use techniques to clarify value flow and then align teams to those multiple flows.

This thing called DDD seems to help 😁

@TeamTopologies

crichardson, 5 months ago

@matthewskelton @TeamTopologies

I meant the meaning of 'align' is a tad fuzzy.

But doesn't "aligning a team to a flow." rmean having the team do the work (of the flow)?

matthewskelton, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

@crichardson Yes, I think once you have found the flows, there is work needed in those flows and the Stream-aligned team does the work in/on/around that flow.

@TeamTopologies