Platform Crew
Crew Type
The Platform Crew offers shared services to the other Crews in a Base.
Crew Types: Governance Crew • Value Stream Crew • Facilitation Crew • Capability Crew • Platform Crew • Experience Crew • Partnership Crew
Purpose
In many Bases, the Value Stream Crews need to share a common architecture and infrastructure to do their work. For a while, you can achieve this with a Facilitation Crew that helps the value streams to maintain a library of shared services together. However, at some point, you will find that it's time to create a Platform Crew.
The goal of a Platform Crew is to offer shared services to the other Crews in a Base. Often, the services will be of a technical kind, including architecture and infrastructure, commonly provided through APIs. But it's also possible for them to be human services, such as lunch boxes, package deliveries, legal advice, receipt declarations, learning and development, and so on.
Notes
Any activity that takes work out of the Crews' hands and helps them speed up and be better in their jobs is a possible service for a Platform Crew.
The Platform Crew is inspired by (but NOT the same as) the “platform team” in Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow.
“Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.”
(Source: Virginia Burden)