In my previous post, I discussed the common approaches of using technology aligned teams versus product aligned teams. Both approaches have their pros and cons, but what if there was an approach that combined the best of both worlds?
Most of the pros related to technology aligned teams are manifested during the design, purchasing, and initial provisioning stage. Most of the cons surface after the platform is in production and on-going maintenance or business-driven changes are necessary. On the other hand, platform aligned teams usually excel when responding to evolving business needs, but come up short (from an enterprise perspective) when it comes to procurement and enterprise-aware design decisions. You probably see where I'm headed...
Let's have the technology aligned teams focus on their strengths: centralized purchasing power, enterprise-aware (but not constrained) design, and initial provisioning. After the platform is moved into production, it's turned over to a platform focused team that provides the on-going care and feeding, business-driven changes, and future upgrades.
In this model, it's likely an organization could reduce the size of the technology aligned teams over time. Instead of the two or three go-to people and the surrounding extra hands, leverage the knowledge of the strong people and eliminate the need for a large team for on-going maintenance. Let the platform specific teams handle the on-going maintenance using change schedules that suit their specific business needs.
The cons? This approach requires a high percentage of skilled people. The technology focused teams need to be really good at what they do. Their team can't be composed of one or two good people surrounded by extra hands. They need to create frameworks capable of being turned over to other teams and they need to be capable of listening and adjusting to the sometimes necessary differences required by different product platforms. Similarly, the platform focused teams inheriting the infrastructure need to have the maturity and ability to manage the platform without re-inventing the whole thing after they get their hands on it. The platform teams will likely need to be composed of renaissance engineers in order to allow a relatively small team to manage the wide variety of components necessary to deliver an IT product.
In addition to the strong people, a high degree of trust and communication between the teams is a absolute must. If the teams do not trust and respect each other, this model crumbles. As teams and organizations expand in size, trust and communication are extremely difficult to maintain. Have you seen this model in action? Which aspects actually worked well and which stumbled?
