How Team Topologies Relates to the Different Positions Played in League of Legends
In both software development and competitive gaming, effective team structure and collaboration are critical to achieving success. Whether you are managing a sofware engineering team or playing a game of League of Legends (LoL), how you organise your team and define roles impacts the overall performance and outcome.
In this blog, I’m going to draw an interesting comparison between Team Topologies: a framework used to define and optimise team structures in modern software engineering, and the positions in League of Legends. While one is about creating scalable and efficient software, and the other is about winning a fast-paced game, the principles of collaboration, specialised roles, and strategic alignment remain the same. If you haven’t read the book: Team Topologies yet, please checkout my previous blog post on book recommendations where it has more information about this blog and why you should read it!
Understanding Team Topologies
Team Topologies is a model that helps software teams structure themselves for optimal collaboration and efficiency. It emphasises four fundamental types of team interactions:
- Enabling Teams – Help other teams to overcome obstacles
- Stream-aligned Teams – Work on a particular value stream or feature
- Complicated Subsystem Teams – Specialise in areas requiring deep expertise
- Platform Teams – Provide internal services that teams use to build and deploy
Each team interacts with others based on the need for collaboration, specialisation, or support. The idea is to create flow and minimise friction in software development processes, resulting in faster, more effective delivery.
Relating Team Topologies to LoL Positions
Now, let’s translate these team dynamics into the world of League of Legends. In LoL, the game consists of five primary positions that each player takes on the team: Top lane, Jungle, Mid lane, Bot lane (ADC), and Support. Each position has its own responsibilities and areas of expertise, much like the roles in a DevOps or software engineering team.
Let’s break it down!
Stream-aligned Teams: ADC and Mid Lane
In LoL, the ADC (Attack Damage Carry) and Mid lane positions are the backbone of most teams, much like stream-aligned teams in software. They are primarily focused on delivering high-impact damage and playing towards the core objectives. These positions require a good understanding of the game’s flow, with their actions directly influencing the team’s success or failure.
- ADC: The ADC’s role is to deal consistent damage in fights, often being the primary source of damage later in the game. They focus on farming efficiently and scaling to the late game
- Mid Lane: The Mid lane often serves as the “jack of all trades!” Mid-laners are responsible for controlling the map, rotating to assist other lanes, and taking out objectives
Much like stream-aligned teams, both the ADC and Mid-lane players are responsible for executing the core game strategy and ensuring that the flow of the game moves in their favor. They focus on delivering results by interacting with their team to capture objectives and engage in fights.
Enabling Teams: Support
The Support role in LoL is similar to the Enabling Team in Team Topologies. The Support’s job is to enable the ADC (or other teammates) to perform at their best. They provide vision, crowd control, and utility, all while protecting and helping to guide the team.
- Support: They often provide healing, shields, crowd control, and vision to help their team gain an advantage. While not directly involved in getting kills, they play a crucial role in enabling other players to do so.
Just like enabling teams in DevOps, Support players remove obstacles and provide assistance to others. They often have a deep understanding of the team’s needs and help smooth over any bottlenecks in coordination.
Complicated Subsystem Teams: Jungle
The Jungle role in LoL corresponds to Complicated Subsystem Teams in software engineering. A Jungle player has a specialised, complex role that requires a high level of expertise. They travel all over the map, controlling neutral objectives and assisting lanes with surprise attacks or with counter attacks. Their impact is more subtle but can be game-changing with good decision-making.
- Jungle: They manage jungle camps for resources, secure objectives like Dragon or Baron, and help influence other lanes by providing vision and pressure. A successful jungle requires knowledge of map control, timing, and decision-making.
Just like Complicated Subsystem Teams, Jungle players are the experts in a specific area of the game. Their knowledge of timing and strategy is critical to the team’s success, and they often create opportunities or resolve complex issues that the rest of the team can capitalise on.
Platform Teams: Top Lane
The Top lane can be seen as Platform Teams. Top lane players are often more self-reliant than others, focusing on tanking, split pushing, and providing consistent pressure. They don’t always need direct assistance from others but instead serve as the foundation for the team’s larger strategy.
- Top Lane: Top laners typically play durable, tanky champions that can absorb damage and initiate fights. They often create pressure and act as the frontline during team fights or as split-pushes.
Just as a platform team equips other teams with the right tools and service — similar to a shop providing weapons and items for champions — top lane players supply the foundation needed for success. They hold their ground, creating opportunities for others to excel by providing a solid, reliable presence. Whether in the form of initiating fights or securing map pressure, they are crucial to the team’s overall strategy, much like the platform team’s role in enabling other teams to perform their tasks effectively.
Conclusion
While League of Legends and software engineering may seem quite distant, the Team Topologies framework can be a useful way to understand the roles and dynamics within any team, including in gaming. By recognising the similarities in team structure and function, we can better appreciate the importance of defining clear roles, collaborating effectively, and optimising interactions.
Whether you are leading a software engineering team or playing League of Legends, the principles of specialised roles, team interactions, and smooth collaboration apply. Just as in gaming, where each player contributes to a win, in tech, every team member plays a key role in delivering successful, scalable products.