Scale, Flow and Microservices

Explore the fascinating connections between organizational design, software architecture, and complex adaptive systems in this thought-provoking conference talk from GOTOpia February 2021. Delve into recent research on high-performing software development organizations and discover surprising links to studies on biological systems. Learn about scaling laws, corporate metabolism, and the flow of work in organizations. Examine how these principles apply to microservices architecture and software development practices. Gain insights into identifying signs of organizational aging, understanding corporate mortality, and uncovering potential solutions for creating and scaling high-performing software and organizations. Through engaging analogies and examples, uncover the underlying principles that connect seemingly disparate systems and apply these lessons to improve software architecture and organizational design.

Intro
What do mice and elephants have in common?
What do Newsagents and Walmart have in common?
What do Hamburg and Leipzig have in common?
Complex adaptive systems
3 simple principles
Complex adaptive systems are everywhere
The most famous scaling law
Corporate metabolism
Why do metabolic rates slow as size increases?
Flow of work in organizations
Identifying the signs of ageing
Corporate mortality
The alchemist's stone
Outro