Dynamic Agility · Solution Areas
Collaboration Maps
This guide turns the Collaboration Maps deck into a practical web page for finding Solution Areas, visualizing collaboration on several scaling levels and using maps as a lightweight foundation for dynamic agile organization.
Starting question
How should four closely collaborating teams organize?
The deck starts with a simple but revealing situation: four agile teams collaborate on an architecturally significant component. The useful answer is not merely seating them together or splitting them by discipline, but giving them a meaningful collaboration structure around shared objectives.
Seat them together
Useful during PI Planning, but too weak as an operating model.
Move related components into one ART
Helpful for ART design, but still too coarse when collaboration needs shift.
Keep disciplines separate
Optimizes local language, but may fragment value flow across hardware, firmware and software.
Create a collaboration framework
Let teams define collaboration strategy, roles and artifacts for shared PI Objectives.
Concept 1
Solution Areas make close collaboration explicit.
A Solution Area is a set of two to four agile teams, maximum five only with a strong reason, that collaborate on the same objectives with high interdependency. It gives the teams a higher-level frame for self-organizing around the flow of value.
Example
Patient Table of an MRI
The deck illustrates the concept with teams working on a patient table: software, firmware, electronics and mechanics must collaborate because the value appears only when cabling, power supply, operating system, control software, integration APIs and mechanical parts fit.
Finding Solution Areas
They are already there. You only have to find them.
In a complex environment there are always teams that must collaborate more closely. The question is whether the organization uses these patterns consciously and gives them their own meaning, collaboration routines and artifacts.
One ART as ten separate teams
The ART exists, but the hidden collaboration clusters are not visible.
One ART with three Solution Areas
Teams that create value together become meaningful collaboration building blocks.
Concept 2
Four levels of Collaboration Maps
A Collaboration Map deliberately abstracts one level at a time. Each map hides the internal structure of lower levels so that the organization can see the collaboration pattern at the level where a design decision is needed.
People → Teams
Maps the communication and collaboration structure between individual people and reveals team structures.
Teams → Solution Areas
Ignores internal team structure and maps collaboration between teams to reveal Solution Areas.
Solution Areas → ARTs
Maps collaboration between Solution Areas and reveals Agile Release Train structures.
ARTs → Solution Trains
Maps collaboration between Agile Release Trains and reveals Solution Train structures.
Dynamic maps
Collaboration Maps are forecasts, not commitments.
Maps are updated on a regular cadence. First and second level maps usually update every sprint and look two to four sprints ahead. Third and fourth level maps usually update every PI and look one to two PIs ahead.
Concept 3
Five collaboration types help read the map.
Collaboration is not one thing. The deck separates product, technical architecture, infrastructure, organizational architecture and org-chart collaboration so teams can distinguish why they need to work together.
Product Collaboration
Teams collaborate because product value, features or user journeys connect them.
Technical Architecture Collaboration
Teams collaborate because architecture, interfaces, APIs or integration paths connect them.
Infrastructure Collaboration
Teams collaborate because platforms, environments, toolchains or runtime infrastructure connect them.
Organizational Architecture Collaboration
Teams collaborate because the operating model, roles, events or decision paths connect them.
OrgChart Collaboration
Teams collaborate because formal management, reporting or organizational boundaries connect them.
Exercise 1 · 15 minutes
Collaboration Map on the Second Scaling Level
The exercise asks participants to draw a second-level map: ignore individual people, focus on collaboration between teams, find closely collaborating teams and cluster them into Solution Areas.
Find closely collaborating teams
Start from real work and collaboration needs, not from reporting lines.
Cluster Solution Areas
Aim for two to four teams; use five only with a good reason.
Split large teams if needed
Large teams may contain substructures that matter for collaboration design.
Distinguish work types
Ask whether the teams need product, technical, infrastructure, organizational or org-chart collaboration.
Workshops and interviews
Maps are created collaboratively and tested early.
Collaboration Maps can be created in interviews or workshops. Larger organizations usually need several interviews and workshops. Share maps early with people who are affected by or interested in the maps, so they can give feedback before the map becomes too fixed.
Understand actual collaboration
Talk to people who know the work, dependencies and informal contact paths.
Align on the map together
Let affected groups see and change the same map so ownership grows.
Share before it hardens
Early feedback prevents the map from becoming a top-down diagram.
Why this matters
Collaboration Maps are the foundation of a dynamic agile approach.
They are easy to draw and update, usually do not require management approval to introduce, support value-stream analysis, help people develop a perception for their communication and collaboration needs, and help agile coaches clarify their assignment.
Next step
Use maps to design collaboration and events.
After teams understand their collaboration map, Event Synchronization gives them a practical way to adapt their regular events to those collaboration needs.
Open Event Synchronization Back to Intro Overview Open Workshop Map