The Art of CTO Team Topology Designer models team structures based on the Team Topologies framework with stream-aligned, platform, enabling, and complicated-subsystem team types.
About this toolWhy it matters, common mistakes, FAQ
How Should Your Teams Interact?
Interaction modes are usually implicit, so every cross-team request is renegotiated from scratch. The tax is invisible in any single instance and enormous across a quarter.
Every team is treated as a feature team, and platform work is squeezed in between. Naming the interaction mode — collaboration, X-as-a-service, facilitating — is what makes the expectations legible on both sides.
Questions CTOs ask
- What are the four team types in Team Topologies?
- Team Topologies defines four fundamental team types: stream-aligned teams (aligned to a flow of work, such as a product feature or user journey — most teams should be this type), platform teams (provide internal services that reduce cognitive load for stream-aligned teams), enabling teams (help stream-aligned teams adopt new capabilities through coaching and guidance), and complicated-subsystem teams (own components requiring deep specialist knowledge). The framework also defines three interaction modes: collaboration, X-as-a-Service, and facilitating.
- How do you apply Team Topologies in practice?
- Start by identifying your value streams (the flows of work from idea to customer value), then design stream-aligned teams around them — each owning a complete slice of the product. Create platform teams only when multiple stream-aligned teams need the same underlying capabilities (CI/CD, observability, infrastructure). Use enabling teams temporarily to help stream-aligned teams adopt new practices. Keep teams to 5-9 people (the cognitive load limit) and ensure each team can deliver value independently without waiting on other teams.
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