growing up with agile - how the spotify 'model' has evolved

Growing up with AgileHow the Spotify “model” has evolved

Peter Antman@peterantman

Erik Hartwig@fnork

Spotify

Passion for music

Spotify by numbers ❏ Started 2006 in Sweden.❏ Now in 58 markets.❏ ~2000 employees. 60+ offices.❏ 75M+ active users, 30M paying.❏ 30M+ songs, 1.5B playlists.

Peter AntmanAgile coach @ Spotify 2014 & 2016

Partner 2012 -

@peterantman

peter.antman@crisp.se

Erik HartwigBeen at Spotify for 8+ years

Worked in both Tech and Product as Manager and IC

Moved to SF to start up the Spotify office here

What are you interested to know more about?

An “agile” organization

- The Spotify “model” presented- Snapshot of how we worked in 2012- Gotten a lot of attention- “We want to implement the Spotify

model”- Not intended as a “model”- Interpreted as something

static

Spotify 2012

“This is the way it looks and works in Spotify – right now, in some places”

Bets

“Go big or go home”

Erik’s presentation

Bets history

“Give it all you’ve got”

Purpose

Complexity?

Daniel Ek, founder.

“We aim to make mistakes faster than anyone else”

Hire the right people - and support them deeply

Mastery

1:1

Put the right people together - and trust them.

Autonomy

The Spotify atom: The squad“The most important feature of the organization is the autonomous squad. All other features are designed to support that mini-startup-like squad.”

Autonomy

Autonomy Mastery Purpose

Growth Speed People

Structure added on demand to support - not to govern.

MinimumViableBureaucracy

Scaling mastery

Chapters

Competence

Chapter lead

No team leads

Flexibility

1:1

Squad Squad Squad

Chapter

Chapter

Tribes

A way to divide a large tech organization

Working on the “same” things

Tribe lead

Squad Squad Squad

Chapter

Chapter

Guilds

Grow your interest

Learn from each other

Open space conferences

Law of two feet

Shared code

Code reviewsGuild

Economy of scale

Support feature team

Feature team still own their data & operations

Feature team on call duty

Platform

IO & Container

Feature

Leadership work together

Help team

Lead team

Potlac

PO TL AC

Helps translate (agile) values & principles to organizational operations & structures

People operations (POPS)Acquire and retain the best talent in the world

Agile coaches

POPS

Help people do awesome work across Spotify, by

- Alignment: Frameworks helping people understand how their work fits into the company mission, vision & goals

- Alleviate friction

Company operationsDrive organizational effectiveness

COPS

Mastery Q&A

Scaling purpose

Squad mission

Motivating

Work together

Mission

“Create the best and most unique running

experience that will attract runners to Spotify

and keep them coming back”

Alignment through shared mission

Vision

Tribe mission

Aligning squads

Align Tech & Product

Mission

“Enable Spotify to iterate as fast as possible on product”

More fluid org

From Techto TPD

PO is part of the squad

TPD Trio

TPD Trio

TPD Trio

TPD Trio

Tribe leadership

TPD Trio

Fractal pattern

Shared leadership and responsibility

- squad- tribe- alliance- TPD

OKR (Objective Key Result)

Drive lots of work

Stress

OKR:s to heavy weight

Priorities & achivements

Spotify strategy framework

Spotify Rhythm

2 years goal

Company beliefs

North star

Company Bet

Beliefs

Insights

Data

Data: Qualitative or quantitative information that informs a perspective. This should not be interpretation.

Data Insights Beliefs Bets (DIBB)

Beliefs: Based on that interpretation, which beliefs have you formed about the problem space you are working in?

Metric: What does success look like?

XYZ

Insights: What is your interpretation of the data? What have you learned?

Bets: Based on your beliefs, what are the bets you believe we should make?

Tactic to reach strategy

TAP: Tactic2strategic alignment

Tribe & Squad bets

Company bet

Functional/TPD bet

Tribe bet

Squad epic/bet

TAP

Check-in1 w

6 w

Purpose Q&A

CollaborationTalk to the one who can do it

Decision making

Network Organization

Power to collaborate

!Help?

Advice?

Sure!

Lets a bet!

UserA new why

Putting the user in focus

GLUE(Global Language, Unified Experience)

Product Areas - PAL

“You can see our org chart in the client.”

SocialPlayback

Alliances - who's at the end of the value chain?

Alliance Mission

Verticals - a business unit

Mission

iOS devWeb dev

Backend devPO

QA TA

Design Analytics

BD Marketing

Android devUser research

Verticals - a business unit

Mission

iOS devWeb dev

Backend devPO

QA TA

Design Analytics

BD Marketing

Android devUser research

Still a squad?

User Q&A

StrongMission Containers

Autonomy enablesEmergence towardsShared purpose

Purpose

PeopleAutonomy

Mastery

Speed

Growth

CollaborationUsers

♬

We are hiring

Q&A

The END

Thank you for the slides!Anders Ivarsson

Cliff Hazell

Henrik Kniberg

Joakim Sundén

Feedback/TODO

● “Many of the concepts were similar to Hoshin X planning. I did hear a lot of comments regarding being to actually "see" many of the concepts such as tribes, squads in action - perhaps some videos to help reinforce the concepts.”

● “not enough time - I think we should invite Spotify again - and have another talk focused more around performance/compensation/bonuses/self-evaluation - that is all extremely interesting”

● “Perhaps they could come back and we could drill down a little deeper and analyze/discuss/debate some actual scenarios.”

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