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Managing Dependencies Across Engineering Teams

As engineering organizations grow, so too does the complexity of their systems and the interdependencies between teams. This often leads to a precarious situation – a “tightrope walk” where changes in one area can unexpectedly impact others. Effectively managing these dependencies is crucial for maintaining velocity, stability, and ultimately, delivering value. This article explores the challenges of cross-team dependencies and provides practical strategies for navigating them.

The Problem with Dependencies​

Dependencies aren’t inherently bad. They’re a natural part of complex systems. The issue arises when those dependencies are unmanaged, invisible, or poorly understood. This can manifest in several ways:

  • Increased Lead Time: Changes take longer to implement as teams wait on others.
  • Reduced Stability: Unexpected breakages occur when changes ripple through the system.
  • Difficult Troubleshooting: Identifying the root cause of issues becomes challenging when the impact is widespread.
  • Lack of Visibility into Dependencies: Teams are unaware of who relies on their services or what the potential impact of changes might be.
  • Delayed Issue Detection: Problems surface later in the development lifecycle, leading to costly rework.
  • Knowledge Silos: Information about system components and their relationships is fragmented and inaccessible.

A Real-World Example​

I once worked on an authentication service that was used by nearly every other team in the organization. A seemingly small change to the service’s caching mechanism inadvertently caused performance regressions across several critical applications. The impact was widespread, and the root cause was difficult to pinpoint due to the lack of clear documentation and communication regarding the change. This incident highlighted the importance of proactively managing dependencies and fostering greater visibility across teams.

Mapping the Landscape​

The first step in managing dependencies is understanding them. This involves creating a clear picture of how different components and teams interact. A dependency map visually represents these relationships, highlighting critical paths and potential bottlenecks.

Consider conducting a cross-functional workshop involving architects, team leads, and developers to collaboratively create this map. Tools can help automate this process and maintain up-to-date diagrams, but a collaborative approach is key. Document the purpose of each service and who its consumers are.

Strategies for Reducing Dependency Risk​

Once you understand your dependencies, you can implement strategies to mitigate the risks they pose. Here’s a breakdown of strategies categorized by impact and complexity:

Quick Wins (Easy to Implement, Immediate Impact):

  • Clear API Contracts: Define clear and well-documented interfaces for all services. This helps teams understand how to interact with each other and reduces the risk of unexpected breakages.
  • Automated Testing: Implement comprehensive integration and end-to-end tests to catch regressions early.
  • Communication Channels: Establish clear channels for communication and collaboration between teams. Daily stand-ups, Slack channels, or regular sync meetings can help keep everyone informed.

Long-Term Investments (More Effort, Significant Payoff):

  • Microservices Architecture: Break down monolithic applications into smaller, independent services. This reduces the blast radius of changes and allows teams to work more autonomously.
  • Asynchronous Communication: Use message queues or event streams to decouple services and improve resilience.
  • Feature Flags: Implement feature flags to allow for phased rollouts and easy rollbacks. This reduces the risk of introducing breaking changes to production.
  • Decentralized Ownership: Empower teams to own their services end-to-end, including infrastructure and monitoring. This fosters accountability and reduces dependencies on other teams.

Process & Culture

  • Cross-Team Communication Rituals: Establish regular sync meetings between teams that have strong dependencies. These meetings should focus on upcoming changes, potential risks, and alignment on priorities. A proactive discussion might look like: "Team A is planning to modify the data format for Service X. This will impact Team B’s integration with Service X. Let's discuss potential compatibility issues and agree on a migration plan."
  • Document Key Architectural Decisions: Maintain a central repository for documenting important architectural decisions, including rationales, tradeoffs, and dependencies. Make this documentation accessible to all teams.

The Importance of Team Structure & Knowledge Sharing​

How you organize your teams and share information significantly impacts your ability to manage dependencies.

  • Team Structure: Focus on End-to-End Ownership: Structuring teams around products or features, rather than technologies, promotes ownership and accountability for end-to-end features, reducing handoffs and dependencies.
  • Knowledge Sharing: Break Down Silos: Foster a culture of open communication and knowledge sharing. Encourage teams to document their work, participate in code reviews, and share learnings. Implement a process for documenting key architectural decisions and making them accessible to all teams. An internal wiki is an excellent place to store API contracts, architectural decisions, and incident post-mortems.

A Word on Managerial Responsibility​

Managers play a crucial role in fostering a culture of dependency management. This includes:

  • Prioritizing Dependency Reduction: Actively encourage teams to refactor code and break down dependencies whenever possible.
  • Facilitating Collaboration: Encourage cross-team communication and collaboration.
  • Removing Roadblocks: Help teams overcome obstacles that prevent them from managing dependencies effectively.
  • Empowering Teams: Give teams the autonomy and resources they need to own their services end-to-end.

By proactively addressing dependencies and fostering a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing, engineering organizations can navigate the “tightrope walk” and deliver value more efficiently and reliably.