Team Topologies

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Organize for Flow, Not Hierarchy

Most organizations are structured for control, not delivery—and it shows in slow releases, frustrated engineers, and endless handoffs. Team Topologies flips the script: the structure of your teams should maximize software delivery flow while keeping cognitive load manageable.

The book introduces four team types designed for high-performance delivery:

1. Stream-aligned teams — Own a single product, service, or value stream end-to-end. They minimize handoffs and are empowered to deliver independently.

2. Enabling teams — Coach, mentor, and remove obstacles for other teams, helping them adopt new skills or technologies.

3. Complicated-subsystem teams — Own areas that require deep specialist knowledge or are inherently complex.

4. Platform teams — Provide self-service tools, APIs, or infrastructure so stream-aligned teams can focus on delivery without reinventing the wheel.

Equally important is how teams interact. Skelton & Pais identify three primary interaction modes:

• Collaboration: Two teams work closely to solve a problem together.

• X-as-a-Service: One team provides a service to another via well-defined interfaces, reducing dependencies.

• Facilitating: One team helps another overcome obstacles or adopt new capabilities, usually temporarily.

The key insight: teams are a system, not islands. By defining clear boundaries, responsibilities, and interactions, organizations can reduce bottlenecks, empower teams, and ship software faster.

Who it’s useful for:

• Engineering managers and tech leads designing or scaling teams

• CTOs and heads of product shaping organizational structure

• Anyone frustrated with slow delivery, overworked engineers, or bloated processes