Beyond Engineering: The Future of Platforms - Adopting a Platform Mindset Across Organizations

Explore the future of platforms beyond engineering in this 30-minute conference talk from PlatformCon 2023. Discover how adopting a platform mindset across all organizational divisions can transform internal processes and improve company outcomes. Learn why treating other teams as customers and offering internal products can break down silos, optimize value flow, and enhance collaboration. Examine real-world examples of successful platform approaches in various business domains, including data science, leadership, marketing, legal, and HR. Gain insights into overcoming common challenges, such as rigid platform boundaries, cognitive load management, and trust issues. Understand the importance of prioritizing fast value flow, implementing self-service patterns, and optimizing for adoption and discoverability. Speaker Manuel Pais, co-author of Team Topologies, shares valuable strategies for evolving platforms to meet changing needs and enable teams to work more effectively across the entire organization.

Intro
The ways of working outside Engineering (in)directly impacts the flow of value
Teams tend to optimize for low-value internal processes over high-value outcomes
Platform as a product is a key pattern for "overcoming friction between silos"
Rigid platform boundaries block teams and increase cognitive load
Need to be mindful of cognitive load on platform teams
Trust boundaries strongly impact platform effectiveness
Platform org design & comms need to be optimized for high trust
Lack of adequate team interactions prevents effective platform evolution
Prioritize fast flow of value to (end) customers
Unblock others through (curated) self-service patterns
Platform is open to change, collaborate to discover new needs
Optimize for adoption and discoverability
Enable others by meeting them where they are today