scaling agile at spotify - simon marcus - agile israel 2014
TRANSCRIPT
Agile Israel 2014Simon Marcus – Agile Lead
@lycaonmarcus
Scaling Agile
Music for EveryoneMusic for Every moment
What does scaling FEEL like at Spotify?Is there a Spotify way? (spoiler : nope!)How are we organized?What do we mean by agile, and why?How do we change?What do we mean by agile, and why?
Today’s Playlist
From 10k to 10mm subscribers in 6 years40mm MAUs50% growth since December 20135 Million playlists created or updated a day56 countries
600 engineers, product owners and designers 20+ CoachesFirst acquisitions: Tunigo, The Echo Nest
Teams are Scaling...
Teams are Scaling...
How we got started
Bringing music to the world !@#!@
The Spotify WaysOur work spaces
Who we hire The roles we have
How we have funThe words we use
The words we don’t use
The tools we use Implicit rules
How we act when things go right
$How we grow people
How we learn
Being Swemerican
How we got started
Bringing music to the world !@#!@
The Spotify WaysOur work spaces
Who we hire The roles we have
Being Swemerican
How we have funThe words we use
The words we don’t use
The tools we use Implicit rules
How we act when things go right
$How we grow people
How we learn
How we got started
Bringing music to the world !@#!@
The Spotify WaysOur work spaces
Who we hire The roles we have
How we have funThe words we use
The words we don’t use
The tools we use Implicit rules
How we act when things go right
$How we grow people
How we learn
Being Swemerican
How we got started
Bringing music to the world !@#!@
The Spotify WaysOur work spaces
Who we hire The roles we have
Being SwedishBeing American
How we have funThe words we use
The words we don’t use
The tools we use Implicit rules
How we act when things go right
$How we grow people
How we learn
How we got started
Bringing music to the world !@#!@
The Spotify WaysOur work spaces
Who we hire The roles we have
Being SwedishBeing American
How we have funThe words we use
The words we don’t use
The tools we use Implicit rules
How we act when things go right
$How we grow people
How we learn
In The Last Week I. . .
Spent a day at an offsite with tech leaders arguing about our org structure
1 Helped gang-write a new career path for non-management tech leaders
2
Gave and received “loops” feedback to and from peers
3 Participated in a grass-roots effort to improve project management
4
In The Last Week I. . .
Spent a day at an offsite with tech leaders arguing about our org structure
1 Helped gang-write a new career path for non-management tech leaders
2
Gave and received “loops” feedback to and from peers
3 Participated in a grass-roots effort to improve project management
4
In The Last Week I. . .
Spent a day at an offsite with tech leaders arguing about our org structure
1 Helped gang-write a new career path for non-management tech leaders
2
Gave and received “loops” feedback to and from peers
3 Participated in a grass-roots effort to improve project management
4
So what about our famous org
structure?
Squads
SOCIAL
Life in a Squad
Life in a Squad
Own Services and PipelinesOps in SquadsEvangalizing Mission
Autonomy = Responsibility
Life in a Squad
Chapters
SOCIAL
SOCIAL
SOCIAL
SOCIAL
Chapter Lead
Tribes
SOCIAL
SOCIAL
SOCIAL
SOCIAL
SOCIAL
SOCIAL
SOCIAL
Guilds
Kanban or Scrum or
Scrumban or XP or SAFe or
what?
Yep.
Finding betterish ways to do things that work until they don’t,
and then finding new things.
What is Agile?
Changing (Creating Interesting
Problems)
Organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations – Melvin Conway
Spotify’s Org Chart
Circa 2013
The Wages of Autonomy
A lot of Talking
Execution
20+ teams100+ people8+ months
Alignment Autonomy
Awesome?
Alignment
Autonomy
Awesom
e!!!
A genuine Agile culture…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.
Spotify’s Way
Figuring out what you want to optimize for…Know yourself and who you want to be…Test structures that remain coherent with your beliefs, even as they scale.
Your Way?
Spotify’s Blog: http://labs.spotify.com/My Twitter: @lycaonmarcus
Feedback: sayat.me/lycaonmarcus
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