Enabling + Platforms = Sustainable Continuous Improvement

In this talk, I will share several stories and insights on how to help organizations modernize and continuously improve. Specifically, I will reiterate the importance of leveraging Enabling Teams and their behaviors and how critical it is to combine these with Platforms to support scalable and continuous organizational improvement.

This will not be a theoretical lecture focused on the fundamental concepts of Team Topologies. Instead, I will share practical examples from the field that illustrate the significance of the interplay between “Enabling” teams and “Platforms.” I will conclude the talk by discussing various patterns and anti-patterns related to this topic.

Transcript

1. Enabling + Platforms = Sustainable Continuous Improvement (Kandddinsky 2025) Eduardo da Silva, PhD Independent Consultant on Modernization Organization Dynamics, Architecture and Leadership (esilva.net consulting | eduardo@esilva.net) esilva.net
2. Enabling + Platforms = Sustainable Continuous Improvement (Kandddinsky 2025) Eduardo da Silva, PhD Independent Consultant on Modernization Organization Dynamics, Architecture and Leadership (esilva.net consulting | eduardo@esilva.net) esilva.net
3. esilva.net Enabling + Platforms = Sustainable Continuous Improvement (Kandddinsky 2025) Eduardo da Silva, PhD Independent Consultant on Modernization Organization Dynamics, Architecture and Leadership (esilva.net consulting | eduardo@esilva.net) More here soon: https://esilva.net/enabling-and-platform s-for-sustainable-improvement
4. Modern organizations MUST learn and improve fast(er) 4 esilva.net
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8. 8 esilva.net ⚠ Most orgs operating models do NOT support dynamics for sustainable continuous improvement
9. 9 Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash esilva.net
10. 10 Needs & Demands (external or internal) should be the drivers for change and the required improvements in our org and teams to “respond” esilva.net Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash
11. 11 Learning: “learning about the problems & opportunities in the environment” esilva.net Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash
12. 12 Learning: “learning about the problems & opportunities in the environment” Designing: “explore and design options to address the problem or opportunity” esilva.net Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash
13. 13 Learning: “learning about the problems & opportunities in the environment” Designing: “explore and design options to address the problem or opportunity” Decision-Making: “decide on designs and be able to take action to respond” esilva.net Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash
14. 14 Learning: “learning about the problems & opportunities in the environment” Designing: “explore and design options to address the problem or opportunity” Decision-Making: “decide on designs and be able to take action to respond” 🎯 we need to have the necessary skills and capabilities to “learn, design and decide” and respond to the needs in the environment esilva.net Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash
15. Learning: “learning about the problems & opportunities in the environment” Designing: “explore and design options to address the problem or opportunity” Decision-Making: “decide on designs and take action to make things happen” Needs (external) Skills / Capabilities Needs (internal) Reponse (external) 15 Reponse (internal) esilva.net Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash
16. 16 Learning: “learning about the problems & opportunities in the environment” Designing: “explore and design options to address the problem or opportunity” Decision-Making: “decide on designs and be able to take action to respond” Needs (external) Skills / Capabilities Needs (internal) Reponse (external) Reponse (internal) Needs→Skill/Capability→Response (Teams & Org) esilva.net
17. 17 Learning: “learning about the problems & opportunities in the environment” Designing: “explore and design options to address the problem or opportunity” Decision-Making: “decide on designs and be able to take action to respond” Needs (external) Skills / Capabilities Needs (internal) Reponse (external) Reponse (internal) Needs→Skill/Capability→Response (Teams & Org) esilva.net 💡Skills / Capabilities can be many different things: software engineering skills, methods, tooling, ways-of-working (including how we approach architecture - check Architecture Topologies for more on that), etc. 🎯the overall goal is to make sure that our Org and Teams have effective skills and capabilities to sustainably respond to the needs in the environment
18. 18 Learning: “learning about the problems & opportunities in the environment” Designing: “explore and design options to address the problem or opportunity” Decision-Making: “decide on designs and be able to take action to respond” Needs (external) Skill/ Capability Needs (internal) Reponse (external) Reponse (internal) Needs→Skill/Capability→Response (Teams & Org) esilva.net 💡Skills / Capabilities can be many different things: software skills, methods, tooling, ways-of-working (including how we approach architecture - check Architecture Topologies for more on that), etc. 🎯the overall goal is to make sure that our Org and Teams have effective skills and capabilities to sustainably respond to the needs in the environment 🎯 next, I share some ideas to help orgs and their teams approach this continuous work of having effective skills / capabilities to sustainably respond to environment needs
19. Team Topologies as a Language for Continuous Improvement 19 esilva.net
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21. 21 💡”Needs → Skills / Capability → Response” - my current thinking model to reflect on how “needs” can be used to anchor the needed “skills /capabilities” to support effective “response” and value creation esilva.net
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25. “Enabling” new skills and capabilities in the organization 25 esilva.net
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28. 28 ❓how can we address these situations, where multiple teams are trying to build something that requires a new skill and/or missing capability? esilva.net
29. 29 💡Option A: allow each team to figure things out on their own without any support to accelerate addressing missing skills/capabilities esilva.net
30. 30 ⚠ IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not saying we should not allow teams to explore things on their own… quite the opposite: how can we help teams accelerate being effective and independent esilva.net
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32. 32 ⚠ “Return & Quality of Investment (R&QoI)” typically low: ⬇ teams will spend a lot of time (and 💰💰💰) ⬇ the outcome is often times of low quality (+“debt”) esilva.net
33. 33 💡Option B: allow teams to figure out things, but allow experts on the topic to support teams accelerate their up-skilling and improving of missing capabilities esilva.net
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35. 35 esilva.net Example: ⬆ data capabilities
36. 36 esilva.net Example: ⬆ data capabilities academy.teamtopologies.com /courses /effective-enabling-teams More details:
37. 37 💡Def.: Enabling Activities When an expert or a team with expertize facilitates upskilling and/or addressing a missing capability ⚠ it does not need to be an official team esilva.net
38. 38 ✅ When we allow “Enabling Activities” to happen we: ⬆ accelerate time to value ⬆ improve quality of the solutions 💡Better Value Sooner esilva.net
39. 39 esilva.net From: https://teamtopologies.com/news-blogs-newsletters/maximize-organizational-learning-return-on-investment-with-facilitating-interactions And, for those managers “complaining” about allowing experts helping others This work tends to actually lead to saving costs too 💰💰💰 ⚠ BUT, this requires incentives + thinking how to improve the whole, not just your own team ⚠
40. 40 Principles & Heuristics ⚠ Focus on “Enabling Behaviors” (or activities); you don’t always need official teams ✅ Provide space for people that know about a topic (“experts”) to help others with challenges on that topic ✅ Create sensing mechanisms to understand what are the most common pains => prioritize enabling activities on those esilva.net
41. 41 💡often times, Enabling Activities lead to discovering “emerging capabilities” that help support most teams in the organization around a certain “need” esilva.net
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43. 43 esilva.net Example: ⬆ data capabilities
44. 44 🛑 Anti-pattern: Leveraging Enabling Activities for “indefinite support” of long-lived capabilities around a certain topic (e.g.: Enabling Team owning and evolving tools or libraries for many teams) esilva.net
45. 45 ❓how can we enable scalable support of those needed emerging capabilities - arising from the learnings of Enabling Activities? esilva.net
46. Scaling capabilities and value creation with Platforms 46 esilva.net
47. 47 esilva.net 🟢 It is OK (and desirable) to start framing some of the emerging capabilities in the in the Enabling Team; however if in time that is to be used by the whole org it should be consolidated in a platform. 💡ING bank has this as a principle for their Platforms strategy
48. 48 esilva.net Example: ⬆ data capabilities
49. 49 Principles & Heuristics ✅ Platforms are strategic to consolidate the “emergent capabilities” that most teams need to achieve fast flow of value ✅ Platform investment is a multiplying factor - allows a large number of teams to improve faster (high R&QoI) ⚠ We do not consolidate all things in platforms - we focus on the “Thinest Viable Platform” (TVP) ✅ Often times the experts driving the early enabling activities on teams can become the people joining and shaping the platform teams building the consolidated platform capability esilva.net
50. Enabling + Platforms = Sustainable Continuous Improvement 50 esilva.net
51. 51 New things benefit from “pure enabling activities” - help address the new challenges; understand the skills and capabilities to address the needs In time, we continue enabling but also learn about specific candidate platform capabilities, which most of our teams use to work effectively on those needs We consolidate the common capabilities to address certain needs into shared platforms; while leveraging enabling activities to upskill or address new challenges esilva.net
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53. 53 💡Enabling + Platform Pattern Leverage Enabling Activities to accelerate up-skilling & the shaping of needed capabilities, and if it makes sense scale them into a “self-service platform” 💡this pattern happens for tools, techniques, ways-of-working, etc. esilva.net
54. 54 Learning: “learning about the problems & opportunities in the environment” Designing: “explore and design options to address the problem or opportunity” Decision-Making: “decide on designs and take action to make things happen” Needs (external) Skill/ Capability Needs (internal) Reponse (external) Reponse (internal) (Teams & Org) This will never stop ∞ 54
55. 55 Summary esilva.net
56. 56 Enabling Activities (cope with missing skills and capabilities for new needs) + Platforms (consolidate emerging capabilities needed by many teams) = Sustainable Continuous Improvement (improve based on the environment needs we have to respond) esilva.net Needs (external) Skill/ Capability Needs (internal) Reponse (external) Reponse (internal) (Teams & Org)
57. Enabling + Platforms = Sustainable Continuous Improvement Eduardo da Silva, PhD Independent Consultant on Modernization Organization Dynamics, Architecture and Leadership (esilva.net consulting | eduardo@esilva.net) Thank you! (reach out if you have questions) (Soon) Companion article: https://esilva.net/enabling-and-platforms- for-sustainable-improvement https://academy.teamtopologies.com /courses /effective-enabling-teams esilva.net
58. 💡EXTRA EXAMPLE: Towards sustainable architecture capability with Enabling + Platform 58 For more details check: https://esilva.net/talks/#ama_2025 esilva.net 💡these ideas can be applied not only to “technical skills and tools”, but also to ways-of-working, including how we approach architecture modernization or general improving architecture capability in organizations
59. 59 esilva.net *Architecture Modernization Enabling Team *
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62. 62 esilva.net Improvement
63. Enabling + Platforms = Sustainable Continuous Improvement Eduardo da Silva, PhD Independent Consultant on Modernization Organization Dynamics, Architecture and Leadership (esilva.net consulting | eduardo@esilva.net) Thank you! (reach out if you have questions) (Soon) Companion article: https://esilva.net/enabling-and-platforms- for-sustainable-improvement https://academy.teamtopologies.com /courses /effective-enabling-teams esilva.net