Cloud Native Platform Engineering Community – Initiatives

Initiatives: Content Club

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

About

Leads

Bryan Ross
TBD

Overview

What is Content Club?

Original initiative issue: https://github.com/cncf/tag-app-delivery/issues/781

The Content Club was created out of the challenge of how we grow attention of the great ideas that come out of the platforms working group. This gave me the idea of creating a “content club”, where we pick a shared topic for us to write about each month that we can then read/contrast/comment on. Anyone interested can contribute by creating or discussing content around that topic—articles, videos, blog posts, tutorials, or other formats.

Goals and Benefits

Deepen Knowledge: By exploring the same topic together, from diverse perspectives, we collectively learn more and gain new insights.
Community Engagement: Thematic alignment makes it easier to promote the topic as a group, amplifying individual contributions while supporting the broader mission of promoting best practices.
Network Effect: Linking content around a shared theme creates a natural ‘ring’ of interconnected ideas, helping to drive interest and visibility for contributors and the topic itself.
Content Inspiration: For those of us who benefit from prompts (like me!), this provides a focused starting point to spark creativity.

How It Works

Topic Proposal: At the beginning of each month, a topic will be chosen.
Content Creation: Participants can create and share their content by the end of the month.
Sharing & Promotion: We’ll circulate and promote the content across our networks, driving more engagement.
Feedback & Growth: Discuss lessons learned and consider how the shared perspectives can influence our working group’s direction.

Content Topics

February - Team Topologies in the Real World

Bryan Ross - https://newsletter.bryanross.me/p/team-topologies-in-the-real-world
Steve Fenton wrote this great piece about his real-world experiences of applying Team Topologies in a Product & Data team.
Matt Menzenski explores the parallels between Team Topologies and Deep Work (two excellent books).
Graziano Casto reminds us that while technical advances are important, the key to successful software development lies in how we organize and enable teams to work together effectively.
Dipesh Patel wrote this fun piece comparing platform engineering to the worlds best Christmas movie.
Ricardo Bemfica shows how Livelo applies Team Topologies principles by using developer experience surveys to shape platform strategy, ensuring teams are empowered through data-informed collaboration.

March - Metrics That Matter

Bryan Ross - https://newsletter.bryanross.me/p/metrics-that-matter
Kalle Sirkesalo takes a walk and shares his journey with metrics, from discovering how easily bonus-tied metrics get gamed, to learning how to set effective metrics that influence desired behaviours.
Graziano Casto shares his view against blindly adopting frameworks like DORA in favour of tailoring metrics to outcomes specific to your business.

April - How can AI help your platform engineers?

Bryan Ross - https://newsletter.bryanross.me/p/ai-strategy-for-platform-engineering
Colin Lacy shared a short-form video to describe his vision of a platform enabled LLM.
Kalle Sirkesalo created a long-form video where explores how autonomous agents are becoming more capable through retrieval-based memory, open source frameworks, and improved reasoning.
Graziano Casto explains how GenAI can help developers navigate complex internal platforms by reducing cognitive load and easing tool fatigue.

May - What Happens When Platforms Become Mature

Beyond Launch by Bryan Ross; How to move from “just shipped” to long-term value delivery and platform-as-a-product thinking
The Problem of Success by Graziano Casto; When adoption becomes widespread, the original playbook starts to break— how can - platform teams adapt?
Fleet Management by Abby Bangser; Drawing lessons from over-the-air car updates
Talk by Kalle Sirkesalo (YouTube); A thoughtful look into platform maturity through a real-world lens, full of insights and practical takeaways.

June - “non-technical” Platform Engineering

Bryan Ross - https://newsletter.bryanross.me/p/the-hard-problems-in-tech-arent-technical
Atul discusses the broader organizational and cultural readiness required for successful platform adoption, emphasizing that platform engineering is as much about people and processes as it is about tools.
Graziano’s “ 13 Atomic Habits Playbook for Platform Engineers” breaks down reproducible, small-scale practices that platform teams can adopt to improve consistency, collaboration, and impact.
Kalle’s video explores the often-overlooked non-technical dimensions of platform success—such as effective communication, team alignment, and habit formation—through the lens of real-world engineering leadership.

July - Platform Engineering for Edge Computing

TBC

Schedule

Each month, a topic is selected for discussion and content creation. Members are encouraged to contribute articles, blog posts, videos, or other forms of content related to the topic.

Contributing and How To Join the Content Club

Please check the CNCF #platform-engineering Slack channel to begin collaborating!

Initiatives: Platform as a Product

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

About

The Platform as a Product (PaaP) Initiative is dedicated to advancing Product Thinking in platform engineering. Our mission is to help platform teams treat their internal platforms as products and their users as customers, ensuring platforms deliver real value and meet user needs.

We achieve this by:

Hosting talks and discussions on product management and product thinking in the platform engineering space
Writing and sharing content (such as blogs and guides)
Conducting research through interviews and surveys

The initiative is led by members of the Cloud Native Platform Engineering Community Group and is open to anyone involved in building platforms — not just product managers. We welcome platform engineers, leaders, consumers, and anyone interested in improving platform outcomes through product management practices.

Deliverables:

Talks and discussions
Content
Supporting CNCF Initiatives

Contributing

Get involved: Join our CNCF Slack in the #platform-engineering channel. The Platform as a Product initiative is part of the general Cloud Native Platform Engineering Community Group, which holds meetings every two weeks that are open to all. See the schedule here.

Content

Featured Blog Posts

Platform as a Product Research

Our research combines qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys to understand how organizations build platforms, prioritize user needs, and apply product management practices. Insights are shared openly to help the community advance.

The Raw data from the research is available on GitHub

The outcome of the research so far was presented on the Platform Engineering Day Europe 2025 in London. You can find the recording here.

Learn more about the Platform as a Product Research here or in our blog posts.

Initiatives: Platform Maturity Model Assessment

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

About

Participants / Leadership:

Corbin Pacheco
Steve Fenton
Chris Plank
David Stenglein
Stefan Daugaard Poulsen
Abby Bangser

Overview:

The Platform Maturity Assessment is an accompanying tool to the Platform Maturity Model that simplifies the experience for End Users to identify where their organization sits on the maturity curve. The Assessment will provide a simple and short survey to identify the maturity level according to the categories in the Maturity Model. Organizations can use the Maturity Model to discover the definitions and characteristics at each level of maturity and as a source for guidance on improving their capabilities.

Schedule:

User Acceptance/Beta Testing : 2025-06-24 - 2025-08-05
Beta : 2025-08-05 - 2025-10-31
GA Launch : 2025-11-10 (Kubecon Atlanta)

Deliverables:

Platform Maturity Assessment