Growing Up Spotify Qcon San Francisco 2014 Simon

Growing Up Spotify Qcon San Francisco 2014 Simon Marcus – Head of People Operations / Tribe Lead for Social @lycaonmarcus #qconsf

“If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up! Not me!”

What’s a Startup? ● ● ● Seeking a market Everyone knows everyone Everyone does everything Boundaries and Constraints are visible Plan in days or weeks

Spotify isn’t a Startup ● ● ● 1500 People / 700 in Tech, Product and Design 50 mm MAU / 20 mm DAU 5 mm Playlists created / edited every day 60 Countries Plan in months in years

Spotify isn’t a Startup ● ● ● Assets, markets and people worth protecting You can’t know everyone you rely on Boundaries are not visible Constraints are not visible Planning must happen on longer horizons

Spotify is an adhocracy, and it’s • awesome! Organic organization • • Resists formalization / rules / standards Preference for decentralized decision making Encourages dissent / consensus seeking Fluid Roles

Execution A lot of Talking

Spotify is an adhocracy, and it • sucks! Who does what? !? • • How do we do… SO MUCH TALKING What am I supposed to do? CAN SOMEONE JUST MAKE A #$%%## DECISION!? !?

Today’s playlist • Growing up our org chart • Growing up our strategy • Why’s this all work?

Growing up Our Org Chart

Organizations which design systems. . . are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations – Melvin Conway

Client Infrastructure Release train, platform design, developer experience Feature Squads Social, Search, Browse, Your Music, Discover IO Provisioning, SRE, Monitoring, GHE

How’s this work? Pros: • • • Higher quality Ship most platforms at least every 3 weeks More consistent user experience Better tooling and infrastructure Feature squads can focus on building awesome features

How’s this work? Cons: • Tyranny of the release train • Loss of autonomy for feature squads • Infra squads can feel like they are stuck being quality gates • IO can find it difficult to ensure they are building what people need

Tribes, Chapters, Squads and Guilds

Tribe: Squads with a shared purpose

Chapter: Skills team, within a tribe

Squad: Where the work happens

Life in a Squad

Life in a Squad

Teams are Scaling. . .

Teams are Scaling. . .

Guild: Community of interest, cross tribes

How’s this work? Pros: • High autonomy within tribes / squads • Clear missions within tribes / squads • Healthy tension between delivery and people management • Easy to spin up new parts of the org, model seems to continue to scale well • Initial signs that model can support fast restructuring

How’s this work? Cons: • • Hard to get things done across tribes Squads (tribes) can outlive their usefulness It can be hard for individuals to move between tribes The matrix model can diffuse responsibility to an infuriating degree

Planning and Alignment

The wages of autonomy • • • Haphazard guidance from above Poor deployment of strategy once announced Low visibility into progress and learning Little sense of how to influence strategy productively Lack of understanding of system-wide capacity Teams don’t know how to apply priorities

Awesome? Alignment Autonomy

Alignment es !! e! om Aw Autonomy

Strategic Thinking Data Insights Beliefs Bets DRAFT

• Informed by everyone • Set By Lead Team • Lifecycle of 12 -18 months Core Beliefs • Informed by everyone • Set By Lead team and TPD Strategic Bets Leadership • Lifecycle of 6 -12 months • • Informed by beliefs + bets Set by Tribes + Squads Lifecycle of 6 -12 weeks Projects and workstreams Priorities Strategic Framework DRAFT

Strategic Rhythm • Setting a cadence for the company • Regular, structured touch-points for alignment • Autonomy remains inside touch points DRAFT

The Spotify Way Being Swemerican Our work spaces How we got started Who we hire The roles we have How we act when things go right The tools we use How we learn Implicit rules How we grow people The words we don’t use How we have fun Bringing music to the world !@#!@ The words we use $

The Spotify Way Being Swemerican Our work spaces How we got started Who we hire The roles we have How we act when things go right The tools we use How we learn Implicit rules How we grow people The words we don’t use How we have fun Bringing music to the world !@#!@ The words we use $

The Spotify Way Being Swemerican Our work spaces How we got started Who we hire The roles we have How we act when things go right The tools we use How we learn Implicit rules How we grow people The words we don’t use How we have fun Bringing music to the world !@#!@ The words we use $

Spotify is growing up, with… ● A culture of openness, feedback and even dissent ● Optimized for lots of ideas, personal growth, long term effectiveness… ● Challenged to find better ways of moving faster, learning more, making it easier to get things done.

Want More? Spotify’s Blog: http: //labs. spotify. com/ My Twitter: @lycaonmarcus Feedback: sayat. me/lycaonmarcus