Intro to Org Topologies by Rowan Bunning.pdf

Intro to Org Topologies
With Rowan Bunning
Australian premiere session
23 July 2025 – Agility and Value Sydney
Visualising strategic org design

© 2025 Rowan Bunning. All rights reserved.
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About Rowan Bunning
• Organisational agility consultant.
• 27+ years in software and tech. product development.
• First 10 years: technical software dev. roles on government
projects, enterprise software and co-founding a start-up.
• 16 years: consulting in industries from video games to financial
services inc. $250B/day critical infrastructure.
• Started Agile journey in 2001 with eXtreme Programming.
• Australia’s first Scrum Master in 2003.
• Agile Coach at Ken Schwaber’s European partner.
• Have delivered >545 Agile certification courses.
• Inner westie married with a 5y.o. + spoodle.
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2005
2006
2008
2018
2017
2015
2010
2023

Amsterdam – Org Topologies Consultant
course
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Provence, France – USyd Global EMBA
5

Agenda
7
1. What problems does this address?
2. Org Topology elements
3. MADE elevating katas and AI
4. Objections and Opportunities discussion

What problems does this address?
8

Single team perfection!
11
Scope
of
work
mandate
Scope of skills mandate
more
less
less more
Single small team can do it all
• All skills.
• All necessary knowledge.
Team

As the group scales up, mandates are
scaled down
12
Scope
of
work
mandate
more
less
less more
Team 1 Team 2
Team 3 Team 4

Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 Team 5 Team 6 Team 7 Team 8
Quoting
Leads and
Opportunities
Premium
calculation
iOS app CRM
Data
warehouse
Android app
Scaling scenario

Local optimisation
Manager
End customers/users Other stakeholders
Quoting
Leads and
Opportunities
Premium
calculation
iOS app CRM
Data
warehouse
Android app
PMO / Tribe

Capacity silos
Quoting
Leads and
Opportunities
Premium
calculation
iOS app CRM
Data
warehouse
Android app
PMO / Tribe
Manager

Unable to maximise value
.
.
.
gap
Overall priorities
Manager
?
! !
Quoting
Leads and
Opportunities
Premium
calculation
iOS app CRM
Data
warehouse
Android app
PMO / Tribe

Single function line org vs. cross-functional
learning
.
.
.
gap
Overall priorities
Manager
?
! !
Function A
Line manager
Function B
Line manager
Function C
Line manager
Function D
Line manager
Quoting
Leads and
Opportunities
Premium
calculation
iOS app CRM
Data
warehouse
Android app
PMO / Tribe

Asynchronous dependencies at planning time
18

Misalignment
Supply
Customer/user Value
Business Process
and/or Architecture
Demand
Mismatch…
• reduces transparency
• creates planning time
dependencies
• creates need for big batch
planning
• extra co-ordinator roles
• reduces agility of the whole
• at risk of regression
e.g. User Story
e.g. work on CRM only
Waste = “moments or actions that do not add value but consume resources.”

Problems with scope of work limited teams
• Reliant on handoff and coordination to create value.
• Slower delivery
• Longer feedback cycles
• Bottlenecks around highly specialised teams and individuals
• AI is just going to amplify the weaknesses in your org design.
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Fundamental org design ideas
1. Encapsulate everyone necessary to create value within a
performance unit (team).
2. Consider value from the perspective of the end customer.
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What is Org Topologies?
• A way to flip the narrative on framework-centric Agile
• A visual Org Design language
• A way of communicating current and future capabilities
• NOT Team Topologies!
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The mapping model comprises
2 dimensions of org design
4 organisational characteristics
16 archetypes within 4 groups
3 distinctive organisational topologies
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Scope
of
work
mandate

Incomplete vs. Complete Archetypes
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Require other archetypes
to deliver customer value.
Individuals are:
• viewed as “resource
units”
• assigned to tasks
• create partial solutions
• rely on “thinkers and
planners”
Typical goal: full utilisation
of resources (people).
Can independently deliver
customer value without
depending on other
archetypes.
Typical goals: achieving
outcomes, flow.
Note: these can still be silos
and have poor overall
allocation to value.

Output vs. Outcome Archetypes
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Aiming to maximise output.
e.g. number of features,
velocity.
Aiming to maximise
outcome whilst minimising
output.
e.g. transaction worth, NPS.

Skills Mandate axis
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Transaction costs decreasing (flow)
With the mandate to learn
anything for unbounded
exploration.
e.g. End-to-end teams
exploring AI, ML, web3
opportunities.
Multi-skill
More flow than functional
but dependent on other
units.
e.g. coding and testing team
dependent on external architect,
BA etc.
Functional
Specialising in a functional
area.
e.g. testing team.
End-to-end
Independently do everything
to deliver complete value.
e.g. BPAY squad with analysis,
design, coding, testing and
deployment skills.
Expanding
End-to-end with the
mandate to acquire new
skills when needed
e.g. ML-based fraud detection.

Scope of Work axis
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Switching costs
decreasing (agility)
Capabilities
Works on a capability within
a product or service.
e.g. web search team.
Tasks
Input is fine-grained tasks
that match their expertise.
e.g. Database admins who only
work on stored procedures.
Whole-Business
Collaborate on whole
business problem.
e.g. Retail banking.
Partial-Business
Work on a business vertical,
clearly separated from others.
e.g. savings accounts on net
banking.
Unbounded
Explore new ideas and
satisfy undiscovered
customer needs.
e.g. Spinoff startup venture with
mandate to take new products
to market.

The Archetype Groups
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Oversee the higher scope of
work without ability to create
customer value. Speculate
about potential value and
hand-off specs, plans etc.
e.g. project managers,
product managers, BAs, UX
designers.
Can complete tasks or
partial features but cannot
independently see “the
whole” and cannot create
customer value end-to-end.
e.g. coders, testers.
Capable of delivering value
but only within a narrow
scope of work. Lack the big
picture and flexibility to
change direction
substantially.
e.g. fully cross-functional
squads.
Capable of discovering,
creating and delivering end
customer value from end-to-
end without dependency on
another archetype.
e.g. true Feature team that
works across multiple
components and multiple-
process steps.

Resource Topology
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Aims to maximise resource
utilisation of doers.
Directing archetypes treat
doing archetypes as
“resources”, matching skill
demand with supply.
e.g. traditional project
management with narrow
specialists managed as
individuals.
Suited when committed to
temporarily hiring/renting
specialists e.g. once-off
vendor implementation.

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Delivery Topology
Aims for fast flow by
removing dependencies
through cross-functional
teams.
Strong focus on outputs and
local efficiency.
Focused on a narrow work
scope. Switching contexts is
high cost.
Typical challenges: feature
bloat and not all highest
value items being worked
on.
e.g. Kanban method with
managers and partially
cross-functional teams.
Suited to domains where
core challenge is not
discovering but delivering
with predicably short lead
times e.g. cybersecurity
incident response.

Delivery Topology example
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Adaptive Topology
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Aims for long-term business
resilience through and
customer impact
maximisation in turbulent
environment.
Enabled by cheap and easy
change and overall value
maximisation.
Merges directing, doing and
delivering into one holistic
unit.
Features:
• broad scope of
capabilities and work
• synchronous work
• continuous learning across
scope and skills.
e.g. LeSS
Suited to V.U.C.A. domains
where learning is critical e.g.
disruptors and start-ups.

All 16 Archetypes
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When people are familiar, we
should be able to say things like…
"Most of our teams are CAPS-2-
multi-skilled yet incomplete
lacking certain capabilities. There
are also functional TASKS-1 parties
supporting our CAPS-2 teams. This
creates dependencies and
challenges that are managed by
CAPS-1 and PART-1 groups..."

MADE elevating katas and AI
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MADE Method
Map the ecosystem “as is”
Assess the ecosystem “as is”
Design the ecosystem “to be”
Elevate the ecosystem from “as is” toward “to be”
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MADE around Galbraith’s Star Model
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People
Strategy
Structure
Rewards Processes
information
motivation
power
skills/mindsets
direction
Capabilities, Culture, Performance
Org Goal
Strategic org design is about aligning
Org Goals (deterministic)
to increase the probability of creating capabilities that help us to
attain our
Business Objectives (probabilistic)

MADE step 1. Map
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MADE step 2. Assess
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Test the org for strategic
alignment.
“What organising goal do
we have?”

Optimise the whole
40

What are these optimised for?
“All organisations are perfectly designed to get the results they get!”
– Paul Batalden’s adaption of quote by Arthur Jones, often attributed to W. Edwards Deming

Which organising goal?
Goal Description
Predictability as to what is
delivered when
Maximising the occurrence of events meeting expectations.
Efficient utilisation of
resources
Maximising the usage of the resources available in order to achieve the desired
objective.
Frequency of release
Maximising the ability to release for use sustainably at target quality level at the
timing preferred by stakeholders.
Flow Maximising the continuity of value-adding activity.
Working to priority Minimising the time taken to respond to requests.
End Customer Value
Maximising the satisfaction that a customer external to our organisation feels after
receiving a product or service relative to what they give up in order to receive it.
Adaptiveness of
product/service offering
Maximising the capacity to effectively respond to change in the product or
service & enabling environment by leveraging both low transaction cost and low
change cost.
Learning
Maximising generation and dissemination of new and better knowledge and
understanding in order to improve actions.
Internal stakeholder
satisfaction
Maximisation of positivity from people inside our organisation with significant
interests in our endeavour, relative to what they give up in order to receive it.

Example Optimisation Goal Relationships
Business Success
(probabilistic)
high order capability
low order capability
Discovery and delivery of highest
End Customer Value e.g. Broad Product Definition, Single
Product Backlog, Single Product Owner
Working to Priority
e.g. Feature Teams
Adaptiveness of product
(whole product Agility)
contributes to
Assumption: we are in a complex
environment. Therefore, highest
value is not knowable up-front.
e.g. cross-functional teams
Releasability
(↓ transaction cost)
e.g. Continuous Delivery
Cost of Change
(↓ switching cost)
e.g. XP technical
practices, strong DoD
↓ Lead Time
Throughput
(↓ cycle time)
e.g. limiting WiP
↑ Learning
about markets, customers
and their context

MADE Step 3.
Design

MADE Step 4.
Elevate
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Elevating Katas
• Expand the product definition
• Open space technology
• Mobbing
• Never-ending hackathon
• Pairing
• Visual backlog management
• Managers learn org design
• Make work visible
• Share code ownership
• Commit to truck
• Vertical slicing of work
• Embrace higher cognitive load
• Use AI strategically
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• Beyond budgeting
• Create tailwind career paths
• Lead with OBEYA
• Cross-functional line managers
• Extract team level “owners”
• Elevate Product Ownership
• Extract team leads
• Elevate Scrum Masters
• Managers as Scrum Masters
• Involve SMEs as customers
• Shared cadence
• Multi-team PBR
• Multi-team Sprint Planning
• Product-level Sprint Review
• Org level retrospectives
• Commodity platform
• Merge product backlogs
• Evidence-based management
• Impact mapping
• Shared Definition of Done
See: orgtopologies.com/elevating-katas

Casual Loop Diagramming
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Objections and Opportunities
discussion
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Objection: “No one is doing this, so why should
we take the risk?”
A: There is a list of
existence proofs at
less.works/case-studies

Objection: “Conway’s Law says that we should
structure our teams around the system design /
architecture.”
Image credit: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-financial-advisors-can-
overcome-client-objections-holtman-rrc/
A: No. That’s a widespread misinterpretation of what
Melvin Conway recommended.
Suggestion: read what he actually wrote.

What Conway actually
said
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How to do committees invent? (1968)

- Jeff Bezos - The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone
“Communication is a sign of dysfunction. It means
people aren’t working together in a close, organic way.
We should be trying to figure out ways for teams to
communicate less with each other, not more.”
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Big tech has followed thinking contrary to
Conway and the Agile movement

Objection: “It’s too much cognitive load for a
team to do every part of the product well.”
A: No single team need to be able to work on every
part of the product to always have a team in the pool
able to.

Is it better to go fast… or in the right direction?
57

Objection: “Our product is far too complicated
for any small team to be able to do it all.”
A: Firstly, no single team needs to be able
to do it all.
Across the pool of teams (e.g. 10), we’re
looking for sufficient coverage that it’s rare
for no team to be able to pick up the next
highest priority.
When there is no complete match, there’s
an opportunity for learning!

Multilearning
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January 1986

Skills development
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Objection: “There would be too much cognitive
load!”
A: There are many ways to reduce cognitive load
without compromising what’s best for the
organisation. Read this free book!
learnhow.simplification.works/

Essential Reading on Org Topologies
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orgtopologies.com

To go deeper… I recommend:
Watch keynote: Keynote: Myths of Software
Management & AI+HR 2024, by Craig
Larman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScKZwmU4vvc
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Read book: Creating Agile Organizations: A
Systemic Approach by Cesario Ramos and
Ilia Pavlichenko
https://www.amazon.com.au/Coaching-Agile-
Organizations-Cesario-Ramos/dp/0135853192

An offer from a sponsor…
Let’s connect: linkedin.com/in/rowanbunning/
bit.ly/refer4ai

Well-proven patterns for an Adaptive
topology…
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adaptws.com.au/certified-less-basics-training/

Intro to Org Topologies by Rowan Bunning.pdf

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