Structure
The 'Structure' element of Ecosystem Team management focuses on designing the different teams and roles within the business unit to deliver on the ecosystem vision and strategy. The goal is to enable the scaling of the ecosystem without increasing complexity and bureaucracy that slows down decision-making and delivery.
Principles and Practices
Effectiveness
| Principle | Context | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| The purpose of a business is to create a customer | We need to ensure that we are delivering value to the customer. | By funding products based on strategic priority and defining clear metrics for success we can ensure that we are delivering value to the customer. |
Efficiency
| Principle | Context | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| Internal departments are monopolies, and monopolies are not known for their efficiency and customer focus | We need to instill a customer-centric focus in all teams. | By introducing internal pricing with real competition we can encourage internal departments to productise their services and focus on delivering value to the customer: the Stream Teams. |
| Duplication of effort is a waste | We need to ensure that we are not duplicating the same work and reinventing the wheel across teams. | By funding enabling teams we can ensure that the work that is common across teams is done once and shared across the ecosystem. This will reduce the duplication of effort and ensure that the ecosystem is more efficient. |
Sustainability
| Principle | Context | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| Successful products grow | We need to ensure that each Ecosystem remains performant even as the product grows. | By splitting Ecosystem Teams when they become too large we can ensure that the organisational complexity and bureaucracy is kept to a minimum and that the teams remain performant. |
| Not every team will perform as expected | We need to take quick action to resolve non-performance. | By periodically reviewing product team funding, internal product team funding and enabling team funding we can ensure that the funding is aligned with the strategic priorities of the business and that teams are held accountable for their performance. |
Anti-patterns
- Over-compartmentalisation: Creating too many narrow-focused teams, leading to silos and inefficiencies in communication and collaboration.
- Static Structures: Not revisiting and adapting the organisational structure as the product and market evolve, leading to stagnation and misalignment.