Transform your organization's delivery capabilities and discover optimal boundaries using Independent Service Heuristics (ISH). Upskill your Enabling teams to use ISH as part of Team Topologies adoption. Take steps to develop an organization-wide adaptive approach to teams and service ownership.

Regular Price: £18,000 £15,000 | Limited to 18 participants

Secure your 2024 pricing before 31st December 2024

Product Code: P641c

Secure 2024 pricing

Find boundaries for fast flow using Independent Service Heuristics

Group Training

The business impact

Concrete evidence from enterprise-scale implementations is emerging, showing that using Independent Service Heuristics to discover and define boundaries for fast flow drives measurably improved business outcomes.

Organizations optimizing their boundaries through ISH achieve:

Elimination of costly wait times between teams
Dramatic reduction in cross-team dependencies
Accelerated time-to-market for new features
Improved team autonomy and decision-making
Enhanced ability to scale without traditional slowdowns

Read more about the benefits of fast flow: The ROI of Fast Flow: Real-World Impact on Enterprise Performance

Discover flow-oriented boundaries for teams and services

Finding the right boundaries between teams and services is critical for fast flow. Many organizations waste huge amounts of resources struggling with:

Unclear value stream definitions
Suboptimal team boundaries
Rigid organizational structures
Slow evolution of service boundaries

The cost of poor boundaries is significant - impacting delivery speed, team effectiveness, and ultimately, market competitiveness. This spotlight session provides the tools to overcome these challenges.

Learn Independent Service Heuristics (ISH), a proven approach to discovering and evolving flow-oriented boundaries for teams and services.

Deep insights from real-world implementations

Developed by Matthew Skelton, CEO at Conflux and co-author of Team Topologies, this spotlight session condenses years of implementation experience into practical, actionable techniques for your organization.

Based on direct experience since 2017, years of consulting and implementation expertise have been condensed into three focused sessions that give you the tools to transform your organizational boundaries.

What you'll gain

Deep understanding of different boundary types and their impact
Practical ability to identify and explain boundary types
Hands-on experience applying ISH to real scenarios
Skills to facilitate ISH sessions within your organization
Tools to generate and evaluate candidate value streams
Framework for continuous organizational evolution
Ability to make informed decisions about team and architecture design

Format and delivery

1-day / 2x 3-hour sessions
Up to 18 people in-person or online
Interactive exercises and discussions
Real-world implementation examples
Collaborative digital workspace using Miro
Available in-person or online in a single day, or spread across two days for online sessions

Session structure

The workshop takes place over three 2-hour sessions, making it easy to schedule in busy calendars across multiple time zones. These sessions can be run in the same week or spread across two or three weeks.

Screenshot of part of the Miro board used for this workshop

Session 1: Why we need boundaries for fast flow, and how to identify them

We kick off our first session by examining why we need boundaries and their relationship to fast flow.
We take a deep dive into understanding the different “lenses” to reason about boundaries: fracture planes, user needs, and micro-enterprises. We establish the relationship with Independent Service Heuristics.
We finish session 1 by analyzing fracture planes for one of your use cases. By doing so, you will have actionable insights about your challenges, using fracture planes as a lens.

Session 2: The need for boundaries to be analyzed through different lenses

In our second session, we introduce the concept of micro-enterprises and the relationship with fast flow.
We follow with a detailed analysis of your context with the micro-enterprise lens and ask what the implications are for fast flow.
We then analyze the same context again, this time through the lens of user needs, generating a different set of insights.
We finish session 2 by discussing the different sets of insights provided by the different lenses: fracture planes, user needs, and micro-enterprises.

Session 3: Put Independent Service Heuristics to work, and Q&A

The final session begins by revisiting Independent Service Heuristics, and the relationship with fracture planes, user needs, and micro-enterprises.
We then fully analyze your context with Independent Service Heuristics, by combining the knowledge and insights generated in the previous sessions.
Moving on, we discuss the candidate value streams and the implications of adopting them in the current landscape.
We round off session 3 and our spotlight training with Q&A, where questions from the previous two sessions will be explored by the attendees and practitioners.

Who this training is for

Our ISH Spotlight training is perfect for:

Members of Enabling teams
Agile Coaches and architects
Senior engineers
UX/UI and product managers
Engineering and product leaders

Ideal for organizations seeking to use fast flow as a driver for competitive advantage, especially in established organizations looking to evolve their boundaries. The session is focused on brownfield landscapes, and is designed to support the emergence of new value streams in these environments.

This session can be run in two ways: as an introductory session or as a more extended and in-depth exploration of the techniques over several weeks. In the extended version, we guide and coach your Enabling teams to be able to use the techniques with their peers inside your organization. Discover more in our Engagement model.

Prerequisites for success

Equipment needed

Attendees will need to bring a laptop with a fast network connection and a modern web browser installed (Chrome, Firefox, or Safari preferred). Before the Masterclass you should visit https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lNhS2MY=/ to test that your laptop and browser work well with Miro, the digital whiteboard tool used in both the in-person and online versions of the Masterclass.

You should see a screen similar to this when you visit the test URL above:

Prerequisites

Attendees will get the most benefit from the workshop by completing the prerequisite activities. The ‘Essential’ activities will only take around 1-2 hours to complete. The ‘Recommended’ activities may take a few days to complete in total but will enable a deeper, more valuable learning experience.

Essential

Read the article “Finding good stream boundaries with Independent Service Heuristics” by Rich Allen and Matthew Skelton: https://teamtopologies.com/ish - a field story by the blog post authors, where they enable Zalora to explore candidate value streams. (15 minutes)
At Conflux, we use Miro for our online workshops. If you’re not already familiar with using Miro, you can quickly learn the basics with this short course from Miro: https://academy.miro.com/courses/participant-onboarding

Watch the video “Independent Service Heuristics: a rapid, business-friendly approach to flow-oriented boundaries” TBC (40 minutes) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8hwkDyL6Zs
Complete one or more online video courses on the Team Topologies Academy: https://academy.teamtopologies.com/
Read through and discuss two or more case studies from https://teamtopologies.com/examples - how might these apply to your context?
Read the Team Topologies book: https://teamtopologies.com/book

Ready to transform your organization?

Regular Price: £18,000 £15,000 | Limited to 18 participants | Credit card payments are accepted

Secure your 2024 pricing before 31st December 2024

Book a conversation with our team to secure your masterclass spot and begin your fast flow journey.

We have flexible contract and payment terms. Contact sales@confluxhq.com and mention the “P641c How to use Independent Service Heuristics for fast flow boundaries”.