Team Topologies

6	Choose Team-First Boundaries

When code doesn’t work . . . the problem starts in how teams are organized and [how] people interact.

—Eric Evans, Domain-Driven Design

Flow is difficult to achieve when each team depends on a complicated web of interactions with many other teams. For a fast flow of change to software systems, we need to remove hand-offs and align most teams to the main streams of change within the organization. However, many organizations experience huge problems with the responsibility boundaries assigned to teams. Typically, little thought is given to the viability of the boundaries for teams, resulting in a lack of ownership, disengagement, and a glacially slow rate of delivery.

In this chapter, we define and explore ways ...