The business behind microservices: Exploring the organisational, architectural and operational challenges

Organisational structure, skills and culture are vitally important when implementing microservices

Before attending the QCon New York and Devoxx UK conferences, I had the pleasure of presenting a new talk at the London Microservices User Group (LMSUG), titled ‘The Business Behind Microservices: Organisational, Architectural and Operational Challenges’.

The key theme of my talk explored the often under-appreciated organisational and people impact that introducing (or moving to) a microservice architecture will have on a business. As mentioned in the talk, I’ve lead the implementation of microservice architectures in several organisations as part of my work with OpenCredo and Container Solutions, and so I was keen to share my learnings from the trenches.

Watch the talk and view the slides

You can find a recording of the talk over on the Skillsmatter website, who were our generous hosts for the evening https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/6450-the-business-behind-microservices-organisational-architectural-and-operational-challenges 

The original talk abstract was as follows:

The technology changes required when implementing a microservice-based application are only one part of the equation. The business and organisation will also most likely have to fundamentally change. In an ideal world, this shouldn’t be a problem – what with the rise of agile, lean and DevOps – but this is not always the situation I encounter in my consulting travels. I would like to share some stories of successful (and not so successful) strategies and tactics I have used over the past four years when introducing service-oriented architecture into organisations.

Join me for a whistle-stop tour of the business and people challenges that I have experienced first hand when implementing a greenfield microservice project, and also breaking down a monolith. We’ll look at ‘divided companies’ vs ‘connected companies’, determine the actual impact of conway’s law, briefly touch on the lean startup/enterprise mindset, dive into change management without the management double-speak, and look at the lightweight processes needed to ensure the technical success of a microservices implementation.

You can also find the slides on SlideShare:

At OpenCredo, we are always keen to share our knowledge!

As usual, please do let me know if you have any questions or would like to chat about how we can help with your current organisational/software challenges!