| name | team-shape |
| description | Assess team structure against Skelton's Team Topologies. Evaluate cognitive load, interaction modes, and Conway's Law alignment. |
Team Shape Assessment
Evaluate organizational design for fast flow. Source: Skelton & Pais (Team Topologies).
Assessment Workflow
1. Map Current Teams
For each team, classify:
- Stream-aligned: Owns a user journey or business domain (most teams should be this)
- Enabling: Helps other teams acquire capabilities (temporary engagement)
- Complicated subsystem: Deep specialist knowledge (only when cognitive load justifies)
- Platform: Internal product that reduces cognitive load for stream-aligned teams
2. Evaluate Cognitive Load
For each team, assess:
- Intrinsic load: Problem complexity (can't reduce, only manage)
- Extraneous load: Bad tools/processes (SHOULD reduce -- platform teams help here)
- Germane load: Learning new relevant things (encourage)
- If team is overloaded: shrink domain, move complexity to platform, or split
3. Audit Interaction Modes
Between each pair of collaborating teams:
- Collaboration: Working closely together (time-box this -- it's expensive)
- X-as-a-Service: Consuming/providing via API (ideal steady state)
- Facilitating: Helping another team learn (enabling teams do this)
4. Conway's Law Check
- Does architecture mirror team structure intentionally?
- Do team boundaries align with security boundaries?
- Do team APIs match system APIs?
5. Recommendations
- Teams without clear type -> needs redesign
- Collaboration lasting > 1 quarter -> should evolve to X-as-a-Service
- Stream-aligned team with > 2 cross-team dependencies -> architecture needs decoupling
Update canvas/team-shape.yml with assessment results.
