Unless you go too far with the change there are no disadvantages. But what happens when you transform 100% of your engineering org from single function and component teams into feature teams. The disadvantages will show up around the most strategic areas of your product. And you will only feel the pain in the long term, say 12–18 months into the change.

Pros & Cons

Not all problems are born equal, hence not all solutions should look alike. Feature teams are probably the right structure for 90% of your org. But there are product areas and problem domains where it’s worth considering other structures.It can be an area in your product where the risk of faults is super high. It can be an area in your platform that requires a different development life cycle. It can be a core product capability that recently came out of a research project and is still evolving to its desired shape.

Conclusion

Every presentation or article about agile software development or about Microservices architecture can’t be considered scientific nor serious unless it somehow mentions Conway’s law:“Any organization that designs a system will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure”

Things to consider when optimizing your Org structure

<ul><li><a href="https://www.microfocus.com/en-us/products/configuration-management-system-database/overview" target="_self">UCMDB</a> is a product that provides Ops people a near real-time picture of the topology of the infrastructure and applications they are operating.</li><li><a href="https://www.perfecto.io/" target="_self">Perfecto</a> offers a cloud-based test lab for mobile and web applications.</li><li><a href="https://www.walkme.com/" target="_self">WalkMe’s</a> Digital Adoption Platform (<a href="https://www.walkme.com/digital-adoption-platform/" target="_self">DAP</a>) improves the interaction between people and applications.</li></ul>

Some Real-World Examples

A company Org structure creates communication channels that are reflected in the system design, which results in a situation that the system design is clearly not aligned with the problem domain and with the needs of the business. In other words, you have an org structure that instead of helping you achieve your goals is just adding massive accidental complexity to every project, and is surely counterproductive in terms of building new products and features.

Accidental Complexity

You probably noticed that every presentation or article about agile software development or about micro services architecture can’t be considered scientific nor serious unless it somehow mentions…

Accidental Complexity

Similar ideas to Accidental Complexity

System Thinking

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