Part of a Platform? (y/n)

[notadevinnz]

What does the section "Part of a Platform? (y/n)" mean? What's the question here? What would need to be true for a team to answer Yes (or No) to this question?

[dinkargupta]

If the team is part of the platform offering for the company and offers service/facilitation/collaboration possibilities for other to benefit. I have just setup a team like that. It's an enabling team within service delivery platform that is facilitating automation of GRC controls on the platform and in future may offer compliance check services for platform users (stream aligned domain teams). This team's consumers are platform engineers, developers and risk mgmt function.

Hope that is helpful.

[notadevinnz]

Hi Dinkar. I appreciate the quick response, but it doesn't clarify the situation for me.
The previous question in the teamplate is 'Type of team', so I assume that covers the four Team Topologies team types - Stream, Enabling, Sub-system, and Platform.

Given that, I have to assume the author had some other intention with this question. But what was it?

[dinkargupta]

fair point. IMHO, this could be to signify that there will be product centric service model on this team's APIs (platform as a product), especially because as per TT's description of platform team, "it is a grouping of other team types that provide a compelling internal product …"

[matthewskelton]

Hi @notadevinnz @dinkargupta thank you for this discussion. Yes, in the 2019 TT book we talk about a "Platform team" but really this is more like a grouping of other teams (almost always). With hindsight, we should have called this a "Platform group", not "Platform team". 😔

So the question about being part of a platform shows this thinking: is the team part of a "Platform group"?

Hope this helps!

[dinkargupta]

@matthewskelton that is precisely how we are using it. it's a "Service delivery platform" for us. a portfolio team. under that there are internal stream aligned, enablement and potentially a CSS team.

[notadevinnz]

@matthewskelton Can you clarify the relationship between platform teams and a platform group. Is every team within a platform group a platform team?

[matthewskelton]

Hi @notadevinnz great question. The way I think about this now is that there is no such thing as a "platform team" but instead there are teams that might be part of a platform group. We might find Stream-aligned teams, Enabling teams, Complicated Subsystem teams, and other platform groups inside a platform [group]. Does that help?

[notadevinnz]

So does that mean that the question "Part of a Platform? (y/n)" should be read to mean "Part of a Platform Group? (y/n)"?

[matthewskelton]

@notadevinnz yes, that's how I would word it now, I think. Sounds like a pull request 🤓