Team Topologies
Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-30
CORE DEFINITION
Team Topologies is an organizational design approach by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais for improving the flow of value and managing team cognitive load. Its four fundamental types are stream-aligned, enabling, complicated-subsystem, and platform teams. Its three interaction modes are collaboration, X-as-a-Service, and facilitation.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
Identifies waiting, handoffs, and cognitive burdens in delivery, then considers team boundaries, platform services, or temporary facilitation to improve value flow. It is more than changing an organization chart or adding communication links.
Anchor fast decisions
A stream-aligned team owns a slice of value flow end to end; a platform team provides a consumable internal product, an enabling team builds others’ capabilities, and a complicated-subsystem team handles specialist technical burdens. Explicit boundaries and interaction modes support action on dependencies and cognitive load; benefits require checking against actual delivery data.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- teamtopologies.comhttps://teamtopologies.comverified
- teamtopologies.comhttps://teamtopologies.com/key-conceptsverified
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