Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow

by Matthew Skelton

Cognitive load was characterized in 1988 by psychologist John Sweller as “the total amount of mental effort being used in the working memory.”22 Sweller defines three different kinds of cognitive load: Intrinsic cognitive load—relates to aspects of the task fundamental to the problem space (e.g., “What is the structure of a Java class?” “How do I create a new method?”) Extraneous cognitive load—relates to the environment in which the task is being done (e.g., “How do I deploy this component again?” “How do I configure this service?”) Germane cognitive load—relates to aspects of the task that need special attention for learning or high performance (e.g., “How should this service interact with the ABC service?”)