Team Design Operating practice

Team API

Makes a team’s purpose, interfaces, ways of working, and expectations explicit.

A Team API describes how others work with a team. It covers owned services, communication routes, work preferences, and known constraints and is maintained jointly.

Core question

What must other teams know to work effectively with this team with minimal disruption?

Plan Team API Method guide

Start comparison

Give feedbackIs this method useful to you?

Participants: Ein Team plus Stakeholder
Time: Half day initial, dann laufend

Team API uses explicit team contract covering mission, ownership, interfaces, and working preferences. Assessments remain justified and context-bound.

Paper illustration of Team API with its method-specific working model.

Mission
Mission/ownership
Name team purpose, owned services, and boundaries.
Interfaces
Interfaces
Describe consumer, interaction mode, and contact route per need.
Ways of working
Ways of working
Agree working preferences, support, and response rules.
Consumer review
Consumer review
Walk through the API with two consumer teams and correct gaps.

Review at least quarterly and whenever responsibilities change.

A good fit when

For stable teams with multiple dependencies; update after reorganisation or service changes.

Ideal for

Team Topologies rollout
Platform teams
Cross-team friction

Not good for

Very small organizations with one team

Outputs

team API
team API with traceable sources, assumptions, and domain decisions.
Decision and review trail
Owners, dates, and next review for team API.

team API

Fictional worked example

explicit team contract covering mission, ownership, interfaces, and working preferences as a precise working structure with a fictional example.

Mission and services

Purpose · outcomes · ownership

Secure self-service deployments; deployment API.

Consumers and interaction

Need · mode · contact

X-as-a-Service; office hour for new integration.

Ways of working

Support · response · preference

#platform-help; P1 via pager.

Boundaries and review

Out of scope · review date · owner

No app data migration; review 15 October.

The example demonstrates the domain logic of Team API; worksheets remain blank.

Team Topologies: Team API template

First step

Start with the core question: What must other teams know to work effectively with this team with minimal disruption?

Open the method guide

Good to do first

Agile

Working Agreements

Supplies internal working rules that serve as the basis for the outward-facing API.

Where to go next?

Team Design

Team Topologies Interaction Modes

Sets the fitting interaction mode for each dependency named in the API.

Team Design

Team Cognitive Load Assessment

Checks whether the services promised in the API overload team capacity.

Deep dive

Purpose

When expectations between teams stay fuzzy, it describes how a team can be reached, used, and held accountable. It clarifies responsibility, interaction, and load between teams. The result is captured as a Team API document.

How it works

The representation makes explicit what services, signals, and rules other teams may expect. This reduces the effort spent on follow-up questions and implicit coordination. The format helps especially when collaboration happens regularly rather than as an exception.

In detail

Team API comes from the book Team Topologies by Skelton and Pais. Each team describes itself as a service provider with responsibilities, interfaces, expectations, roadmap, and communication channels. The document is kept visible internally and reduces friction between teams. It complements classic org charts with interaction-oriented clarity.

Facilitation

Start with responsibilities and interfaces. Keep the document short. Make it prominent in the wiki.

The method guide walks execution through 4 phases, timing, 4 pitfalls, and clear stop criteria.

Open method guide

Your perspective

Does this method help with your work?

Your feedback helps shape the next improvements to methodatlas.

Sources and topics

Topics

Team Alignment Communication Service

Sources

Team Topologies: Team API templategithub.comGitHub repository of the Team Topologies project by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais; a template for documenting a Team API.

In playbooks

Clarify Team Interfaces and CollaborationMove from an unclear team landscape to explicitly agreed interfaces, interaction modes, and sustainable cognitive load.

Artifact templates

Team API: WorksheetPlan Team API around its domain steps and the concrete decision question.

markdown

team-api-working-template.md

Plan Team API around its domain steps and the concrete decision question.

Team API: Worksheet

Question

To be confirmed

Desired outcome

To be confirmed

Scope

Establish and review the practice Time: 90 minutes initially; 30-minute review

Complete this worksheet on paper or in your own document during the work.

Preparation for this scope

Method setup

Materials: Team mission and services, dependencies and contact routes, work and support data, shared workspace, source links, and decision log.
Roles: Whole team · team lead · key consuming teams
Advance information: Collect Team mission and services, dependencies and contact routes, work and support data in advance and mark open assumptions.
Overall time needed: 90 minutes initially; 30-minute review
Setup: Prepare explicit team contract covering mission, ownership, interfaces, and working preferences visibly and calibrate assessment terms before starting.

Prepare for the work steps

Mission: Mission/ownership

Team mission and services
dependencies and contact routes
work and support data

Interfaces: Interfaces

ownership profile
dependencies and contact routes
work and support data

Ways of working: Ways of working

interaction catalogue
dependencies and contact routes
work and support data

Consumer review: Consumer review

collaboration rules
dependencies and contact routes
work and support data

team API

Mission and services

Purpose · outcomes · ownership

...

Consumers and interaction

Need · mode · contact

...

Ways of working

Support · response · preference

...

Boundaries and review

Out of scope · review date · owner

...

Enter only real input, sources, and decisions.

Team Topologies: Team API template

Mission: Mission/ownership

Expected artifact: ownership profile

ownership profile · source · uncertainty · next decision

Entry:

...

Are responsibilities expressed as services or outcomes?

Interfaces: Interfaces

Expected artifact: interaction catalogue

interaction catalogue · source · uncertainty · next decision

Entry:

...

Is there one clear route for every need?

Ways of working: Ways of working

Expected artifact: collaboration rules

collaboration rules · source · uncertainty · next decision

Entry:

...

Are commitments realistic and measurable?

Consumer review: Consumer review

Expected artifact: validated team API

validated team API · source · uncertainty · next decision

Entry:

...

Can consumers find ownership and contact without asking?

Open questions and next steps

...

Method guide: https://methodatlas.meierhoff-systems.de/en/methods/team-api/run-sheet

Alternatives and neighbors

Fitting alternatives with decision guidance, followed by other related methods.

All methods

Agile

Working Agreements

Instead of Team API, choose Working Agreements when you want to define everyday rules for the team concretely and bindingly and need them as a lived working basis.

Team Design

Spotify Model Mapping

Moves team boundaries, interfaces, and collaboration toward a concrete result through "prepare a template with the four structures", "place current teams as squads", and "derive actions".