Who designs the architecture of your software systems? Conway's Law suggests that HR may be strongly shaping software architecture by deciding how teams are composed and interrelate. Do you want HR designing your software architecture? Organization architecture and software system architecture need to be co-designed to avoid friction from Conway's Law. Based on ideas in the book Team Topologies, this talk by co-author Matthew Skelton explains how and why to bring together HR and Engineering to shape team boundaries and interactions for effective software delivery. From a talk at FlowCon 2020

1. TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Accidental Architects
How HR designs software systems
Matthew Skelton
co-author of Team Topologies
@matthewpskelton
FlowCon 2020 Photo by Chris Karidis on Unsplash

2. Team Topologies
2
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press
Order via stores worldwide: teamtopologies.com/book

3. topology
the way in which constituent parts are
interrelated or arranged
Greek: τοπολογία (τόπος == ‘place’)
3

4. 4
Philip Fisher-Ogden,
Director of Engineering at
Netflix:
“thanks for your insightful
articulations of devops
topologies. They inspired
many discussions and
helped us to think about
what model Netflix teams
could be/are using.”
https://twitter.com/philip_pfo/status/999074792123740160

5. 5
Crystal Hirschorn,
Director of Engineering at
Condé Nast International
“Your topological models
resonated extremely well
on both the Dev and Ops
side btw! I like the balanced
arguments, e.g. different
perspectives, for each
pattern.”
https://twitter.com/cfhirschorn/status/1103387659890819073

6. “innovative tools and concepts for
structuring the next generation
digital operating model”
Charles T. Betz, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
6

7. Who designs the
architecture of the
software systems?
7

8. 8

9. 9

10. 10

11. HR department acts
as accidental
architects of the
software system
11

12. 12

13. “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
13
Conway’s Law

14. 14

15. “…products tend to ‘mirror’ the architectures
of the organizations in which they are
developed. This dynamic occurs because the
organization’s governance
structures, problem solving routines and
communication patterns constrain the space
in which it searches for new solutions.”
– MacCormack et al, 2012
15

16. MacCormack et al, 2012
Analysis using Design
Structure Matrix (DSM)
method to analyse
boundary and interface
relationships
16

17. MacCormack et al, 2012
17

18. “We find strong evidence to support
the hypothesis that a product’s
architecture tends to mirror the
structure of the organization in
which it is developed.”
– MacCormack et al, 2012
18

19. Sosa et al, 2004
19
Jet engine design &
manufacture

20. “…we provide empirical evidence that
product ambiguity exists, and it is more
likely to be present across
organizational and system boundaries.”
– Sosa et al, 2004
20

21. Gokpinar et al, 2010
21
Automotive design &
manufacture

22. “…mismatches between product
architecture and organizational
structure [are] positively associated
with quality problems.”
– Gokpinar et al, 2010
22

23. 23
Take advantage of the
mirroring effect of
Conway’s Law

24. Reverse Conway
Maneuver
24

25. 25

26. Design the
organisation to
mirror the desired
system architecture
26

27. 27

28. “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
28
Conway’s Law

29. 29

30. 30

31. 31

32. 32

33. “if the architecture of the system and
the architecture of the organization
are at odds, the architecture of the
organization wins”
– Ruth Malan, 2008
33

34. 34
Organization design
is a constraint on the
“solution search space”

35. 35
Rapid flow of change

36. 36
Rapid feedback from
running systems

37. 37

38. 38

39. 39
Handovers (can) kill flow

40. 40
Team ownership must include:
Releasability
Testability
Operability / Supportability

41. 41

42. 42
→ flow of change → →

43. 43

44. 44

45. Group Trust Levels
45

46. “an individual’s social network
(meaningful relationships)
is typically in the order of
100–200 individuals”
- Robin Dunbar
46
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.150292

47. 47

48. 48

49. 49
Trust dynamics can change
when crossing a Dunbar
boundary. Expect different
rules & non-linear effects.

50. 50
Private car salesCommercial car sales
Car leasing
[example]From Team Topologies,
chapter 3 (page 53)

51. 51

52. 52

53. 53
Private car sales
Commercial car sales
Car leasing

54. Co-design the
organisation and the
system architecture
54

55. 55

56. Team-first approach
56

57. Team Topologies
57
Organizing business and
technology teams for fast flow
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
IT Revolution Press
Order from Amazon or other retailers:
https://teamtopologies.com/book

58. Workbook
coming soon...
Team Topologies
for Remote Teams
58
for Remote
Teams
Resources: teamtopologies.com/remote-first
Icon by Pixel perfect from www.flaticon.com

59. TeamTopologies.com
@TeamTopologies
Sign up for news and tips:
TeamTopologies.com

60. Remote-
Friendly
Training
🠊 teamtopologies.com/training
60

61. Remote-Friendly
Assessments
🠊 teamtopologies.com/assessments
61

62. Resources
62
teamtopologies.com/remote-first
(links, slides, video)
github.com/teamtopologies
(templates, assessments, etc)

63. Thank you!
info@teamtopologies.com
66
Matthew Skelton, Conflux
@matthewpskelton
Manuel Pais, Independent
@manupaisable
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