2 Software Defined Products and Architectures
This chapter covers
- Differentiating between stakeholders and customers
- Optimizing engineering for the end-to-end lifecycle of the product
- Getting product features in front of users early
- Architecting for Change
Companies that set out to apply platform engineering practices without including organizational structures, decision-making habits, and engineering culture in the strategy are destined for failure. It is that structure, decision-making, and culture that led them to where they are now in the first place. If your IT organization is already well-suited to software product delivery, you will find they are already well on their way to delivering a platform product when you first realize you need it.
So what does the organizational structure need to reflect? What engineering practices and decision-making criteria have the kind of impact we want?
Measure organizational responsibilities and structures by how effectively internal products can implement a Product Delivery Model. Reassign responsibilities, set new measures and expectations, and even change the structure if the current model prevents or detracts from the ability to deliver good internal products.
Require the internal use of the output from each team or department to demonstrate that a good domain boundary exists and can be maintained.