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Organise Your Teams for Combined Health, Happiness, and Success

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I've been working on a template to help you and your organisation thrive. Whether you're leading an engineering team, scaling a startup, or refining an established organisation's structure, this Organisation Template provides a structured approach to defining, communicating, and evolving your teams for long-term success.

What is the Organisation Template?

This GitHub repository is a living blueprint for structuring teams, defining clear roles, and managing decision-making processes. By forking and customising this template, you can create a tailored organisational structure that aligns with your company's strategy and culture.

How to Get Started

  1. Fork the repository: organisation-template
  2. Modify the content to fit your organisation's needs.
  3. Build the Docker images using the instructions in BUILD.md.
  4. Deploy to your infrastructure of choice and start using it!

What's Included?

This template provides a structured approach to organisational design, combining best practices from Team Topologies, Thoughtworks, and Agile methodologies to help teams operate efficiently and effectively.

Team Structure & Communication

  • Team Topologies Framework - A modern approach to team organization that defines four key team types (Stream-aligned, Platform, Enabling, and Complicated Subsystem) and interaction modes (Collaboration, Facilitation, and X-as-a-Service) to optimise software delivery.
  • Role Definitions - Clearly defined organisational functions and roles, ensuring clarity and efficiency.
  • PlantUML-Generated Visualisations - Communicate team structures and roles with dynamic diagrams.
  • Function to Location & Role Distribution - Visual representations of organisational structure and role allocation.
  • Sample Team Charter - Create a clear mission statement to keep your teams happy and productive.

Decision-Making & Governance

  • Thoughtworks Technology Radar - Assessing and adopting new technology stacks in engineering and architecture, providing insights on best practices and emerging trends.
  • Sensible Defaults - Organisational guidelines for adopting, maintaining, trialing, or removing technology decisions using an Architectural Decision Record (ADR) process.
  • Decision Management Mechanisms:
    • Architecture Decision Records (ADR) - A structured method for documenting architectural decisions and the reasoning behind them, ensuring transparency and consistency.
    • RAPID Model - A decision-making framework that helps teams clarify roles in decision-making processes by defining who Recommends, Agrees, Performs, Inputs, and ultimately Decides.
    • RAID Analysis - A risk management tool used in Agile projects to track Risks, Assumptions, Issues, and Dependencies.

Planning & Execution

  • Task Management Frameworks:
    • RACI Model - A responsibility assignment matrix that clarifies who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed for each task or project.
    • Decision & Risk Mitigation Strategies - Guidelines for handling decisions effectively, avoiding blind spots, and ensuring cross-functional alignment.
  • Outdated Design Management:
    • Deliberate Outdated Design Register - A structured approach to tracking intentional outdated design.
    • Bit Rot & Outdated Design Reviews - Strategies for preventing long-term architectural degradation.
  • Incident Management & Response:
    • Incident Ownership & RACI Model - A structured approach for defining responsibilities during outages.

Cost, Profitability & Scaling

  • Cost Awareness Strategy:
    • Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) - Tracking infrastructure, third-party services, and operational expenses.
    • Profitability Metrics - Using ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) and LTV (Customer Lifetime Value) to measure long-term business sustainability.
  • Scalability Frameworks:
    • Guidelines for Evolving Team Structures - Recommendations for growing teams without sacrificing efficiency.

Visualising Your Organisation

To help teams understand their roles and interactions, the template includes PlantUML-generated diagrams.

Examples

Legend for interpreting the diagrams:

Legend

Example: Role-to-Function Distribution

Role Distribution

Why Use This Template?

Standardisation Without Rigidity

The Organisation Template provides structured defaults but allows for flexibility. Teams can tailor the template to their specific needs while maintaining a high level of standardisation across the organisation.

Clearer Accountability & Decision Making

Using models like RACI and RAPID, teams can clarify who is responsible for what, improving efficiency and reducing ambiguity in decision-making.

Improved Team Collaboration & Scaling

By leveraging Team Topologies concepts, this template helps define interaction modes (Collaboration, Facilitation, X-as-a-Service) and supports the natural scaling of teams.

Proactive Risk & Outdated Design Management

Built-in RAID Analysis and Outdated Design Registers ensure that risks, assumptions, and system entropy are managed proactively rather than reactively.

Alignment Between Engineering & Business Objectives

Integrates financial and operational considerations, ensuring that technology decisions align with business profitability and scalability goals.

Conclusion

The Organisation Template is designed to help your company achieve clarity, efficiency, and scalability in its structure. By leveraging this repository, your teams can focus on innovation rather than getting bogged down in inefficiencies.

Start defining your organisation today by forking the organisation-template repository!