Release year: 2022

Authors: Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais

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Link to my handwritten notes

Review

This is a nice and small companion book to Team Topologies with a focus on how to take advantage of the different topologies in a remote or hybrid work setting.

Félix rating:
👍

⭐ Star quotes

1. (p 1) Google’s five keys to successful teams:
   1. Psychological safety: can teams take risks without feeling insecure?
   2. Dependability: Can teams count on one another?
   3. Structure and clarity: Clear goals, rules and execution plans
   4. Meaning of work: Is the work important to the team?
   5. Impact of work: Does the team believe their work matters?
2. (p. 5) Instead of spending time waiting on other teams to finish their work, focus on tracking then removing dependencies between teams.
3. (p. 6) Don’t make it hard for people to discover meaning in written communications. Make messages self-contained to help reduce cognitive load.
4. (p. 34) Make it easy for people to self-serve, e.g. by having channel names that make it obvious where to get support (#support-...). Every time someone self-serves, someone’s time is saved.
5. (p. 43) The problem with the organizational chart is that for a lot of knowledge work, we cannot have communication only happening up and down the different branches. Don’t build communication channels around your org chart!
6. (p. 57) Use a net promoter score (NPS) to gauge how well the platform is perceived by internal customers.