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What is Platform as a Product @ GitLab Connect ...

What is Platform as a Product @ GitLab Connect Amsterdam, Apr 2024

Savvy organizations are discovering the value of treating their internal platforms as products. But what does it mean to treat a "platform as a product"? What benefits does this give, and why would an organization adopt this approach?

In this talk, Manuel Pais, co-author of the book Team Topologies, explains why the platform-as-product approach can be a game-changer for organizations building and running software-enabled products and services. Using ideas & patterns from Team Topologies - including Thinnest Viable Platform, team cognitive load, and the evolutionary team interaction modes - Manuel explains how organizations like Uswitch and Adidas have successfully used the platform-as-product model to accelerate and simplify the delivery of software at scale.

Manuel Pais

April 23, 2024
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  1. TeamTopologies.com @TeamTopologies What is Platform as a Product? Manuel Pais

    co-author of Team Topologies GitLab Connect Amsterdam - 23 April 2024
  2. Team Topologies 3 Organizing business and technology teams for fast

    flow Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais IT Revolution Press, 2019 teamtopologies.com/book
  3. Remote Team Interactions Workbook 5 Using Team Topologies Patterns for

    Remote Working Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais IT Revolution Press, 2022 Available to pre-order now teamtopologies.com/workbook
  4. 4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’ 14 ⚠ lead time ⚠ deployment

    frequency ⚠ mean time to restore ⚠ change fail percentage
  5. “A digital platform is a foundation of self-service APIs, tools,

    services, knowledge and support which are arranged as a compelling internal product.” – Evan Bottcher, 2018 24 Source: https://martinfowler.com/articles/talk-about-platforms.html
  6. “Create a path of least resistance. Make the right thing

    the easiest thing to do.” – Evan Bottcher, 2018 30
  7. 62 Thinnest Viable Platform A small, curated set of complementary

    services or patterns that simplify and accelerate delivery when used together. “Use these N services in these ways...” Photo by Jean-Philippe Delberghe on Unsplash
  8. 68

  9. 70

  10. 71

  11. Clarify platform service boundaries and provide right-level abstractions to reduce

    the cognitive load on teams using the platform * * Can’t be bought “out of the box” 72
  12. 74

  13. Product: Holistic User Experience Functionality + Design + Monetization +

    Content – Marty Cagan, 2010 79 Source: https://svpg.com/defining-product/
  14. 81

  15. 83

  16. 85

  17. 87

  18. 89 A platform is optional to use - no team

    is forced to use the platform
  19. 91

  20. 93 Platforms must be designed with the user in mind

    (internal teams) - focus on UX and DevEx
  21. 95 Platforms must help users to achieve goals by understanding

    user needs and simplifying tasks & workflows
  22. “People were spending more time having to interact with relatively

    low-level services thus spending their time on relatively low-value decisions.” - Paul Ingles 106
  23. 108

  24. 129

  25. 130 2018 Infra platform started with few services First customer

    (centralized logging, metrics, auto scaling)
  26. 132

  27. 134

  28. 135 2018 Infra platform started with few services First customer

    (centralized logging, metrics, auto scaling) 2019 Started using SLAs and SLOs, clarifying reliability/latency/etc Growing traffic in platform vs AWS
  29. 4 key metrics: ‘Accelerate’ 137 lead time deployment frequency mean

    time to restore (MTTR) change fail percentage
  30. 138 ... Addressed critical cross-functional needs (GDPR, security, alerts +

    SLOs as a service) Finally adopted by the highest eng maturity & biz revenue team 2018 Infra platform started with few services First customer (centralized logging, metrics, auto scaling) 2019 Started using SLAs and SLOs, clarifying reliability/latency/etc Growing traffic in platform vs AWS
  31. 142

  32. 153

  33. 154

  34. 155 “most platform approaches [will] fail if technology remains the

    primary focus (…) companies that explicitly focus on team interactions, developer experience, feedback loops, and product management will leapfrog those who do not”