User needs as a north star ⭐: rethinking alignment in complex organisations

The talk also examines AI as a stress test for user-centricity, revealing whether alignment is real or merely assumed. Attendees will leave

Many initiatives that aim to change or optimize a system tend to focus on local optimization of separate parts, yet this rarely improves the performance of the whole. Organizations are composed of interacting social and technical subsystems that cannot be treated separately. To adapt to constantly changing circumstances - a challenge amplified in AI-accelerated times - these subsystems need to be aligned and treated as an interactive socio-technical system.

This is where Architecture for Flow comes in: a holistic toolset for designing, building, and evolving adaptive, socio-technical systems optimized for a fast, sustainable flow of value and constant feedback.

Learn how to bridge business strategy, software design and architecture, and team organization by combining Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design (DDD), and Team Topologies.

Key takeaways from this talk include:

• Understanding why AI-accelerated development amplifies existing architectural and organizational frictions - and why fixing foundations matters more than adopting AI faster
  
• Anticipating change and identifying areas where to invest, what to outsource or evolve to gain competitive advantage by combining Wardley Mapping and DDD
• Identifying blockers to flow from an architecture, team ownership, and team dependencies perspective
• Unlocking blockers to flow by applying patterns and practices from DDD, Wardley Mapping, Team Topologies
• How Architecture for Flow provides essential guardrails for safe AI adoption - not new because of AI, but now essential for AI

Bio:
Susanne Kaiser is an independent tech consultant and former startup CTO with over 20 years of experience in software engineering and software architecture. She works with organizations on building adaptive, socio-technical systems by combining Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design, and Team Topologies into a holistic approach. Susanne is the author of the book "Architecture for Flow” (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Vernon), 2025).