Architecture for Flow: Building Foundations for Continuous Change

Software systems are evolving faster than ever. Especially in times of AI-accelerated development, speed without a solid foundation turns into instability. This talk revisits fundamental principles and introduces "Architecture for Flow": a holistic approach combining Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design, and Team Topologies. It shows how good system design enables sustainable flow of value and feedback, and why architectures amenable to change are more important than ever.

Target Audience: Architects, Engineering Leaders, Senior Developers
Prerequisites: Basic understanding of modern software architecture principles
Level: Practicing

Extended Abstract:
Many initiatives that aim to change or optimize a system tend to focus on local optimization of separate parts, yet this rarely improves the performance of the whole. Organizations are composed of interacting social and technical subsystems that cannot be treated separately. To adapt to constantly changing circumstances - a challenge amplified in AI-accelerated times - these subsystems need to be aligned and treated as an interactive socio-technical system.

This is where Architecture for Flow comes in: a holistic toolset for designing, building, and evolving adaptive, socio-technical systems optimized for a fast, sustainable flow of value and constant feedback.

Learn how to bridge business strategy, software design and architecture, and team organization by combining Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design (DDD), and Team Topologies.

Key takeaways from this talk include:

• Anticipating change and identifying areas where to invest, what to outsource or evolve to gain competitive advantage by combining Wardley Mapping and DDD
• Identifying blockers to flow from an architecture, team ownership, and team dependencies perspective
• Unlocking blockers to flow by applying patterns and practices from DDD, Wardley Mapping, Team Topologies