Architecture for flow with Susanne Kaiser

Mar 26, 2026

Susanne Kaiser, author of Architecture for Flow and independent technology consultant, helps organisations move from friction to flow. She discusses aligning Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design and Team Topologies. Short, punchy conversations cover fast flow vs friction, Conway's Law shaping systems, event storming as a living tool, team types and interactions, and how AI can amplify existing bottlenecks.

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INSIGHT

Define Fast Flow As End-to-End Team Ownership

Fast flow means teams own the end-to-end journey from idea to customer with minimal blocking dependencies.
Susanne Kaiser defines blocking dependencies as handoffs that create delays between planning, building, testing, operating, and releasing.

ADVICE

Use Wardley Maps To Challenge Build Versus Buy

Use Wardley Mapping to visualize user needs and the value chain before choosing build versus buy decisions.
Susanne starts maps with user needs to challenge assumptions like why a component is custom-built when a commodity alternative exists.

ADVICE

Start Event Storming With Domain Events

Run big-picture Event Storming first: collect domain events in past tense and order them chronologically to reveal domain behavior.
Susanne blends in process and technical notes later, keeping software design for after team alignment.

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Subscribe to the newsletter: https://deararchitects.xyz📚 RESOURCES MENTIONED📖 Architecture for Flow — Susanne Kaiser: https://amzn.to/4bMl0UR📖 Team Topologies — Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais: https://amzn.to/3NIESA9📖 Wardley Mapping: https://www.wardleymaps.comIn the age of AI-accelerated development, most teams are shipping faster than ever but faster into the wrong direction. Investing time in software design, team alignment, and architectural thinking is not slowing you down. It is the only thing that will stop AI from amplifying your existing bottlenecks at scale.In this episode of Dear Architects, Susanne Kaiser, author of "Architecture for Flow," shows how to combine Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design, and Team Topologies into a single coherent approach, in this way your architecture, your teams, and your business strategy finally move in the same direction.We get into what fast flow really means, why Conway's Law shapes your software whether you acknowledge it or not, how event storming becomes your most powerful tool in the AI era, and whether the "Architect" job title will even exist in the future.🕐 CHAPTERS0:00 Intro & meet Susanne Kaiser2:10 Why Susanne wrote Architecture for Flow5:10 What is fast flow (and why friction is a signal, not a problem)9:00 Conway's Law & the sociotechnical system12:40 Wardley Mapping explained15:00 Using Wardley Maps with leadership and the C-suite19:20 How Susanne approaches a new client engagement22:30 Domain-Driven Design: bounded contexts & subdomains24:20 Event Storming: where to start and how to run it31:10 Keeping event storming as a living document33:30 Team Topologies: the missing puzzle piece38:00 How team types map to bounded contexts41:00 Team interactions and how they evolve over time42:30 Systems are living — not just code43:30 The Architecture for Flow Canvas46:00 How long does the canvas process take?47:40 Evolving your North Star (not a big upfront design)50:30 AI accelerates your bottlenecks — not just your delivery54:00 Why DDD and event storming matter more in the AI era56:20 Architecture Decision Records and institutional memory58:30 Will the "Architect" job title disappear?1:01:20 The architect as coach: a federated future1:02:30 Where to start if you want to try this today1:04:00 Wrap up & where to find Susanne