1. Team shape

Conway’s law.

“Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.”

2. Service level agreements

How are you internal SLAs achieved?

Is it word of mouth, in tickets, top down, or some other mechanism?

One way or another, service level agreements are being made, and they have an impact on long lasting decisions.

3. Research culture

Collective time allocated to researching things like clean code, solid principles and other fundamentals. This basis is necessary for grass roots refactoring and an evolving architecture.

4. Test suite

How you implement your automated test suite across the pyramid affects confidence and your ability to move large things efficiently.

5. Team maturity

People coming and going reduces expertise. Having enough time to become a subject matter expect enables teams to make lasting technical decisions and lift larger things.

6. On-call schedule

Knowing who, when and for what you are expected to be available for 24/7 product support affects what your may be willing to slice into or out of a monolith.