#117 – Managing Dependencies

Both SAFe and Team Topologies build on visualizing, articulating and managing the dependencies between teams in order to optimize for an effective flow of value across the teams. In SAFe, the delivery-related dependencies for the next Program Increment are visualized at PI Planning on a Program Board. 

In Team Topologies, the more systemic and everlasting dependencies between the teams lead to a categorization of the teams into being either Stream-Aligned Teams, Complicated Subsystem Teams, Platform Teams or Enabler Teams. The dependencies are then managed by the teams interacting through collaboration, one team providing something to another team, or by one team facilitating that another team learns the skills needed for not being dependent on the former (see Strip 89 – Team Topologies in our previous book or homepage).  

This Team Topologies interaction pattern, Facilitation, takes a step from only managing dependencies to also removing them, as often Enabler Teams are used here in order to help the Stream-Aligned Teams build the needed knowledge to be as independent as possible.