Sociotechnical Systems Evolution and Architecture

4 half days workshop
Eduardo da Silva

Sociotechnical Systems Evolution and Architecture

No dates are scheduled for this workshop. Let us know if you think we should organize it near you, or if you'd like to book it on premise in your organisation.


This workshop is all about learning, practicing, and discussing thinking models, tools, and methods that allow unlocking and driving sustainable co-evolution of org and tech-based on customer and business value.

Modern organizations are realizing that they must embrace tech as a key enabler of their products, not just as a "cost center" or "factory" as it used to be. This places tech as a central strategic element to implement modern ways of building products that maximize the value exchange with customers and react to the market.

To make this happen, however, it is essential to understand the customer, and its environment and nurture the sociotechnical systems that build and evolve those tech-enabled products. It is not just about having a brilliant technical system architecture, or great product idea, it is about holistically understanding and evolving the product, teams/organization, and technical systems. This understanding and co-design and evolution is what we call sociotechnical systems evolution & architecture.

In this workshop, we will explore methods and tools that enable you to understand and evolve your organization’s sociotechnical systems architecture. We will have a hands-on group exercise setting, where you practice all the different ideas and techniques shared. The goal is to accelerate your way to develop thinking models with this framing. Furthermore, give you several pragmatic tools that you can start using and bringing into your organization's operating model to approach this complex system evolution.

The workshop has three main parts:

  • we introduce key traits of sociotechnical systems evolution and architecture, and why this is key to setting your organization for success in delivering tech-enabled products;
  • then we provide you with thinking models, methods, and tools to holistically assess and understand your sociotechnical systems evolution and architecture (using techniques such as Strategic DDD Context Maps, Team Topologies, SocioTechnical Systems Decision Records (STS-ADR), and others );
  • finally, we share and discuss several mechanisms to adopt in your organization’s operating model, which promote continuous sensing, understanding, and evolution of your sociotechnical systems and architecture.

What you will learn:

  • Foundations of Product Thinking and Customer-driven Product Development;
  • What are sociotechnical systems and how do they fit into the big picture of an organization that wants to optimize for fast flow;
  • Thinking models that allow you to holistically understand and evolve sociotechnical systems (our Systems-Evolution-Scopes (SES) Thinking Model);
  • Why is evolution a key part of such systems and architectures?
  • Suitable methods and tools for designing and evolving sociotechnical systems architecture, such as DDD, Team Topologies, and others;
  • How to work with Sociotechnical Systems - Architecture Decision Records (STS-ADR) and Ideal Present Canvas.

Who should attend:

  • Software Architects
  • Tech Leads
  • Product Managers
  • Engineering Managers
  • CxOs
  • Highly Recommended: Companies “Product Trios” - Product Manager (leading the “What”), Engineering Manager (leading the “Who”) and Tech Lead / Architect (leading the “How”). These are key perspectives in the thinking model shared during the workshop, and we believe having these perspectives together in the workshop can maximize the ability to adopt these ideas in the organization.

Prerequisites

  • You'll need free Miro.com and Zoom accounts

Testimonials

I Loved the interactive nature of this workshop and how each activity was built on the same case study. In the short term it's been a very interesting challenge to my mental models! In the long term I would like to think through the interplay of architecture and agility and make it influence the way we work today.

Eduardo da Silva

About Eduardo da Silva

Eduardo da Silva is an independent consultant, advisor, and trainer on topics related to the sustainable evolution of sociotechnical systems, organizational design, technical leadership and architecture. He focuses on helping tech-enabled organizations find strategies, structures, and operating models to scale sustainably and be at flow. He takes a sociotechnical systems’ framing, considering org/people, technical, product, and business perspectives. He regularly speaks and writes about these topics at esilva.net

Since 2005 he has been an academic researcher, entrepreneur (founder of a startup), software engineer/architect, and consultant in multiple companies (from startups to scale-ups). From 2017 to 2022 he was principal tech lead and sociotechnical architect for the largest e-commerce website in The Netherlands and Belgium (bol.com) where he worked on a variety of technical and organizational challenges to scale this 150+ team product-led organization.

Eduardo has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Twente, Netherlands. He is originally from Portugal but now lives in Amsterdam.

All workshops by Eduardo da Silva
@emgsilva

No dates are scheduled for this workshop. Let us know if you think we should organize it near you, or if you'd like to book it on premise in your organisation.


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