SAFely Hacking Conway's Law - dfkompetens.se · @MartinBurnsSV- Download-these-slides- The-Organisational-Challenge “We$can'tcontrol$systems$ or$figure$themout. Butwe$can$dance$with$

@MartinBurnsSV http://everydaylean.info

Dancing with (µ)Services Based Architectures  With The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)


Download these slides  

The Organisational Challenge

“We can't control systems

or figure them out.  

But we can dance with

them! ”

—Donella Meadows



Is this your reality?

Source: Tuhl at en.wikipedia.com

http://en.wikipedia.com



Or perhaps this..?

Source: martinfowler.com

http://martinfowler.com



Successful organisations are Sociotechnical

Systems



Conway’s Law

“organizations which design

systems ... are constrained to

produce designs which are copies

of the communication structures

of these organizations ”

—Melvin Conway



Conway’s Law

“If you have four groups working

on a compiler, you'll get a 4-‐pass

compiler”

—Eric S Raymond



Conway’s Law

UI

Middleware

Data

HTML/Javascript

Angular.js

Java

Messaging

Data



Fighting Conway’s Law: Demand Splitting

Source: iancarroll.com

http://iancarroll.com



Fighting Conway’s Law: Handoffs

Source: iancarroll.com

http://iancarroll.com



Designing the System Starts with  

Designing the Organisation



Organisation Design is a Critical System Design

Decision



How do you design an

organisation to deliver (µ)SOA?



How can that organisation work together  to achieve SOA

benefits?



Services Orientated Organisation



How can that organisation work together to achieve SOA

benefits?



Levels of Risk

5 Nobody has ever done this before, anywhere

4 It has been done elsewhere once or twice

3 It has been done elsewhere quite a few times, with learning and repeatable results

2 It has been done within our organisation

1 It has been done within our organisation by this team



You have a choice

1.  Be a pioneer: Work out what  works for you

Levels of Risk








You have a choice

2.  Start with a

framework and evolve

Levels of Risk






If you’ve don

e it before, y

ou have expe

ctations.

If you’ve nev

er done it, al

l you have is

hopes



Summarising the problem

Our world has large products

• You cannot produce a retail loyalty card system with 6-‐8 people in one room (in a sane amount of time)

• Conway’s Law implies many small teams

• And now we have a co-‐ordination challenge.

• Designing a solution from 1st principles incurs significant Risk.  

• So what do we need?

…but we cannot have large teams

• Communication pathways grow exponentially with team size:  [n*(n-‐1)]/2 5 members: 10 pathways  10 members: 45 pathways

• Prof Robin Dunbar:  there is a cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships

• Large teams produce monolithic  Big Balls of Mud



The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

The Scaled Agile Framework is a template for applying Lean and Agile at teams of teams scale, with alignment and transparency

Powerful Synchronizes  alignment, 

collaboration and  delivery

Principled Well defined in books 

and in guidance Proven Scales 

successfully to  large numbers  

teams



SAFe in a Nutshell: Team Cadence

Demo

Story

Story

Story

Story

Iteration 2 weeks

KanbanScrumban

Scrum

Retrospective



SAFe in a Nutshell: Program Cadence

System Demo

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Potentially Shippable Increment: 4-‐6 Iterations

Team of  Teams

Retrospective



Big Room Planning



The most visibility I’ve had into what the team are doing in 5 years, since the group was 15 people, and because of that, I have more trust and confidence than I’ve had in 5 years

Big Room Planning



Release Like an AirlineBook in advance Plan for delays Plan for overbooking High cost of missing 

Queue, queue, queue



Release Like a Train

Frequent Departures No need to consult a timetable No need to book No worry about missing one  Turn up and Go! Plan together; Deliver together



• Enables a further fractal layer of independence with agreed touchpoints  

• Driven from Enterprise Strategy 

• Kanban System constrains WiP 

• Prioritisation by Economic Factors

T14

T13

Portfolio Initiates, Funds & Governs Release Trains

T19

T17

T11

T10

T18

Release 1

Release 2

Release 2.1

Release 2.2

Release 3

Release 4

Release 4.1

T11T10



Public Case Studies

ScaledAgileFramework.com/case-‐studies

Leffingwell et al. © 2014 Scaled Agile, Inc.

Impressive Results

• Transparency increased on all levels

• Delivery cycle time down from >12 months to 3 months

• Increased predictability (2014 92% successful releases)

• Need for patches decreased

• Fewer defects in main branch

• Good basis for further growth



Summary

• If you want an architecture based on many services, you need an organisation of the same structure 

• That organisation needs a process that balances autonomy and alignment 

• The Scaled Agile Framework provides just enough structure to enable that, and it works.

Architecture

Organisation

Sociotechnical Systems


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…grundades&år&2000,&har&idag&ca&400&medarbetare&och&verksamhet&i&CStockholm,&Malmö,&Göteborg&och&Oslo&

…består&Gll&100%&av&erfarna&specialistkonsulter&

…har&uteslutande&organisk&Gllväxt&

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SAFely Hacking Conway's Law - dfkompetens.se · @MartinBurnsSV- Download-these-slides- The-Organisational-Challenge “We$can'tcontrol$systems$ or$figure$themout. Butwe$can$dance$with$