I think platforms are needed but we should always keep in mind what is the value of providing to the other teams and to the organization. There's a very real risk of the platform actually blocking those teams because if we put too much inside the platform it can block them from doing their best work. If your platform is responsible for some services and it's becoming a blocker to other teams who need to do different stuff then you need to figure that out maybe some teams who are more product teams should be allowed to go on a off-track a little bit as they have specific needs.
Manuel Pais delves into one of the concepts covered in his book “Team Topologies”: platform and enabling work. Manuel shares how he views the strategy behind when and how to invest in platform or enabling work. This conversation also goes into each type of work in more detail, covering topics such as measuring cognitive load and where platform engineering may be heading in the future.
- (2:13) How enabling teams and platform teams are different
- (10:28) What it looks like for a team to own both platform and enabling work
- (17:04) How to deliver enabling work in an organization
- (22:28) Whether enabling teams should be temporary
- (30:10) Platform team anti-patterns
- (47:10) Measuring cognitive load