Practice : Strategy & Outcome Mapping

Purpose and Strategic Importance

Strategy & Outcome Mapping aligns teams to business goals by making the connection between organisational strategy, customer outcomes, and team missions explicit. It ensures that teams are structured and funded to deliver value—not just output—and that dependencies, domains, and responsibilities are well understood.

This practice is essential when adopting frameworks like Team Topologies, where understanding flow, interaction modes, and boundaries is critical to designing effective team structures and investment plans.

Description of the Practice

  • The practice maps strategic goals to measurable outcomes, value streams, and the teams responsible for delivering them.
  • It identifies how different team types (e.g. stream-aligned, enabling, platform, complicated-subsystem) support those outcomes.
  • Strategy & Outcome Maps include:
    • Goals and priorities (from OKRs, portfolio themes, etc.)
    • Desired user or business outcomes
    • Value streams or problem domains
    • Team boundaries, responsibilities, and interactions
  • It supports continuous alignment as priorities shift or dependencies emerge.

How to Practise It (Playbook)

1. Getting Started

  • Start with 1–2 product or platform areas and gather key stakeholders (engineering, product, ops, security, etc.).
  • Identify the top goals or outcomes expected in the next 6–12 months.
  • For each outcome, define:
    • Who are the users?
    • What is the intended change in behaviour or capability?
    • Which teams or domains are involved?
    • What types of teams are needed (Team Topologies lens)?
  • Visualise the map using a shared canvas or whiteboard tool.

2. Scaling and Maturing

  • Integrate mapping into quarterly planning, org design, or funding rounds.
  • Link strategic outcomes to delivery metrics, investment areas, and OKRs.
  • Use Team Topologies patterns to inform when to shift team types or interaction modes.
  • Make maps visible in leadership reviews, team kickoffs, and portfolio sessions.
  • Review regularly—outcomes shift faster than structures.

3. Team Behaviours to Encourage

  • Ask “What outcome are we enabling?” in planning, architecture, and retros.
  • Discuss team boundaries and dependencies openly—map the reality, not the ideal.
  • Treat organisational design as dynamic—not fixed.
  • Share outcome maps cross-functionally, not just within engineering.

4. Watch Out For…

  • Focusing on team outputs (e.g. features, tickets) rather than outcomes.
  • Mapping strategy only once a year—treat it as a living artifact.
  • Misaligning team responsibilities and funding (e.g. teams asked to do work they’re not resourced for).
  • Over-engineering the maps—start simple and iterate.

5. Signals of Success

  • Teams understand the outcomes they exist to serve—and how success is measured.
  • Dependencies and misalignments are visible and addressed proactively.
  • Org design changes are guided by strategy, not headcount allocation.
  • Team structures evolve in response to flow constraints or new priorities.
  • Leadership conversations centre on outcomes and value—not just team velocity.