Serverless Craic from The Serverless Edge
Welcome to Serverless Craic from The Serverless Edge with Dave Anderson, Mark McCann and Mike O'Reilly. We want to share our tools and techniques so that you can use them to communicate your Technical Strategy with your C-Suite and business owners. We want to help you to build a serverless first organisation. We will show you how to use Wardley Mapping to gain situational awareness of where your cloud applications and business are. And then how to develop your technical capability in away that builds engineering standards to set your organisation up for sustainable success.Sounds like the tools and techniques that you need - then hit the subscribe!-ABOUT- Dave, Mark and Mike are senior technical architects/leaders passionate about driving technical strategy. They have led transformation journeys, technical excellence, cloud adoption and tech strategies in many industries.Active in various technologies including ML/AI, Public Cloud (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), Engineering, Product, Cyber and UX.
Serverless Craic from The Serverless Edge
Serverless CrAIc Ep85 Why Team Topologies Matters More Than Ever in the AI Era
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Why Team Topologies Matters More Than Ever in the AI Era.
Are AI agents changing how software teams should be structured?
In this episode of Serverless CrAIc, David Anderson, Mark McCann, and Michael O’Reilly explore one of the biggest questions emerging in the AI era:
👉 Does Team Topologies still matter when AI agents can generate code, tests, and workflows at incredible speed?
The discussion dives deep into:
Cognitive load in AI-driven engineering teams
Socio-technical systems and AI adoption
Why human collaboration still matters
Stream-aligned teams in an agentic world
The evolving role of platform teams
Why enabling teams are more important than ever
AI agents as “team members” — myth or reality?
How engineering organisations scale safely with AI
Why guardrails, standards, and architecture matter more now
The balance between autonomy and control in AI-enabled organisations
One key theme runs throughout the conversation:
AI may accelerate software delivery — but the human systems around software are still critical.
As development speeds increase, organisations must rethink:
collaboration
communication
cognitive load
organisational design
engineering enablement
platform strategy
operational excellence
This is a must-watch discussion for engineering leaders, architects, platform teams, and anyone building AI-enabled software organisations.
Chapters
00:00 – Introduction
00:23 – AI, socio-technical systems, and Team Topologies
01:02 – Why cognitive load matters more in the AI era
02:07 – Drinking from the AI fire hose
03:20 – Shifting cognition from code to outcomes
04:32 – Why engineers are moving higher up the value chain
05:48 – DP1 vs DP2 organisational design principles
07:15 – Autonomy, mastery, and purpose in AI teams
08:50 – Are AI agents team members?
10:45 – Agent orchestration and organisational principles
11:44 – Why AI is not truly a “team member”
13:09 – Can you really pair program with AI?
13:52 – Stream-aligned teams in an AI world
15:34 – Jevons Paradox and accelerating software delivery
17:11 – The changing role of platform teams
18:46 – Security, governance, and AI platforms
20:31 – Why platform teams must stay ahead
21:08 – The critical role of enabling teams
22:32 – Coaching engineers to work effectively with agents
23:23 – AI anti-patterns and “We Jimmy” chaos engineering
24:54 – Complicated subsystem teams and deep expertise
27:20 – Does Team Topologies still matter?
28:06 – Constraints, guardrails, and organisational design
28:39 – Closing thoughts
Resources & References
📘 Books & Concepts Mentioned
Team Topologies — Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
Cognitive Load Theory
Socio-Technical Systems
Team Design Interaction Modes
Stream-Aligned Teams
Platform Teams
Enabling Teams
Complicated Subsystem Teams
Cynefin Framework
Jevons Paradox
Well-Architected Systems
AI Agent Orchestration
📚 Key Themes
AI engineering teams
Organisational design
AI agents and workflows
Platform engineering
Developer productivity
AI adoption
Engineering leadership
Team structures in AI
Guardrails and governance
Human + AI collaboration
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Serverless CrAIc from The Serverless Edge
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