Blog | Lars Barkman

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2025

One Mode and Five Types Is All That You Need

After working with various organizational models—from matrix structures to Team Topologies—I've discovered a pattern that emerges when organizations successfully implement team-based frameworks: they converge on X-as-a-Service as their primary interaction mode and evolve toward five distinct service types. This approach reduces coordination overhead, creates clear team boundaries, and enables genuine autonomy while maintaining system coherence. The fifth service type—Stewardship Services—treats enterprise design itself as a consumable service, filling a critical gap that becomes apparent at scale.
Making Daily Check-ins Meaningful: A Flow-Focused Approach

Learn a practical 15-minute flow-focused approach to daily check-ins that builds systems thinking, improves team coordination, and drives predictable delivery through strategic work prioritization.
Why I Prefer Stakeholder Stories

Picture this: You're in a product planning meeting, and someone reads out a user story: 'As a user, I want to receive email notifications so that I stay informed about updates.' Everyone nods. It sounds reasonable. But here's the problem—who actually wants this feature, and why? As an IT architect, I've seen teams build perfectly functional systems that nobody uses because they solved the stated problem instead of the real problem. This is where stakeholder stories become transformative, forcing teams to ask the right question: What outcome are we trying to achieve, and which stakeholders actually care about it?
Beyond Team Structure: Why Intrinsic Motivation Drives Performance

Why even the best team structures fail without intrinsic motivation. How autonomy, mastery, and purpose transform knowledge workers from compliant to committed, creating sustainable competitive advantage through engaged, high-performing teams.
The Power of Working in Pairs

Beyond team size: How strategic pairing creates resilient, high-performing teams by establishing intentional structures that maximize collaboration and minimize coordination overhead.
Right-Sizing Your Teams: How to Fix Size Problems

This comprehensive guide helps engineering leaders identify and solve team size problems. Learn to recognize the telltale signs of oversized, undersized, and underutilized teams, then apply structured playbooks to right-size them for optimal performance. Includes practical strategies for overcoming resistance, measuring success, and maintaining team effectiveness throughout organizational changes.
The Science of Team Size: Why Too Big or Too Small Breaks Performance

The science is clear: team size is a critical factor in performance. Too large, and communication overhead crushes productivity; too small, and you lack resilience. Discover why the 7±2 sweet spot balances communication efficiency with necessary skill coverage. Learn the research behind optimal team sizing and how to address common objections from both sides of the spectrum.
Beyond Architecture: Exploring Alternative Metaphors for the Enterprise

This post challenges the dominance of the architectural metaphor as the primary lens for enterprise design and explores more dynamic alternatives. By examining how metaphors shape our thinking, we consider machines (emphasizing efficiency), ecosystems (highlighting interdependence), cities (balancing design with emergence), and ultimately gardening as a framework that naturally resolves tensions between structure and adaptability, control and autonomy, stability and innovation. Rather than providing definitive answers, the post cultivates questions about how shifting metaphors might transform leadership approaches, team dynamics, and organizational capabilities to better address the complex challenges facing modern enterprises.
Visualization as Strategy: Transforming Complex Work into Clear Decisions

Strategic visualization transforms team alignment, decision-making, and delivery outcomes. Learn key principles and practices that drive measurable business results through effective visual communication.
Engineering Leadership: Making 1:1 Meetings Meaningful

A practical approach to elevating 1:1 meetings into impactful coaching and alignment sessions, grounded in research and team psychology.
Web Frontend Rendering Strategies: A Strategic Decision-Maker's Guide

This strategic guide helps technology leaders navigate the complex landscape of web rendering approaches—from CSR to SSR, SSG, and ISR—with a decision framework that aligns technical choices with business requirements, performance metrics, and SEO considerations to optimize both user experience and operational efficiency.
Enterprises Are Systems Too: Designing for Competitive Advantage

Enterprises function as systems where intentional design of operating models, interfaces, and feedback loops can dramatically reduce coordination overhead, accelerate decision-making, and create sustainable competitive advantage.
Relaunching My Website: A Business Asset

I'm transforming my digital presence from a basic business card to a strategic asset that demonstrates expertise, builds relationships through content, and creates new opportunities through public knowledge sharing across blog posts, consulting services, and venture initiatives.

© 2025 • Lars Barkman

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