Talk by Joakim Sundén and Anders Ivarsson about agile and scaling agile at Spotify. These particular slides are from a Kanban Open Space event in Ghent, Belgium, February 2013.

1. Agile at Spotify
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2. What is Spotify?
The right music for every moment
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Spotify is a new way to listen to music. Millions of tracks, any time you like. Just search for it
in Spotify, then play it. Just help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it.
Launched October 28 2008.
With Spotify, it’s easy to find the right music for every moment – on your phone, your
computer, your tablet and more.
There are millions of tracks on Spotify. So whether you’re working out, partying or relaxing,
the right music is always at your fingertips. Choose what you want to listen to, or let Spotify
surprise you.
You can also browse through the music collections of friends, artists and celebrities, or
create a radio station and just sit back.
Soundtrack your life with Spotify. Subscribe or listen for free.

3. Spotify: Fast Facts
• Over 5 million paying subscribers
• Over 20 million active users
• Over 300 000 labels signed
• Over 20 million songs
• Over 20 000 songs added daily
• Available in 17 countries
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Spotify is available in: 17 countries - USA, UK, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany,
France, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand,
Ireland and Luxembourg. And today we’re adding three more, totaling a whopping 20
countries: Italy, Poland, Portugal.
Subs: 3M June 2012, 5M Jan 2013

4. Development offices
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Three (four) development offices, ~300 engineers, >30 teams.
SF: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/3951912182/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Gothenburg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreas-pross/6210384973/sizes/m/in/
photostream/
NYC: http://www.flickr.com/photos/19942094@N00/6358840971/sizes/m/in/
photostream/

5. Growing fast
5
Tech in Jan 2011 – 60 persons, Jan 2013 - ~300 - 5x growth in 2 years, 10x in 3 years
From 150 to >700 in 18 months.
Why? We grow to offer better products and solutions, to more users, in more markets, faster.

6. Development speed
that scales
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* We need to improve our product at great speed, much faster than any competitor
* We need to prepare to scale, meaning that we must continue to move at a high speed while growing
employees, users and devices
* We must continuously improve how we work and we must accelerate the rate at which we improve

7. Autonomy, Mastery,
Purpose
<ADD PICTURE?>
•“For creative tasks, the best approach is
often just to hire great people and get out of
their way.”
Hire great people and get out of their way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
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Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation
asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction is the deeply human need to
direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our
world

8. High-performance
teams 8
High-performance teams (HPTs) is a concept within organisation development referring to teams,
organizations, or virtual groups that are highly focused on their goals and that achieve superior
business results. High-performance teams outperform all other similar teams and they outperform
expectations given their composition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-performance_teams

9. AGENDA 12th Feb
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Scaling
Challenges
9

10. ALL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS IN
THIS TALK-–EVEN THOSE BASED ON
REAL PEOPLE–-ARE ENTIRELY
FICTIONAL. ALL CELEBRITY VOICES
ARE IMPERSONATED.....POORLY. THE
FOLLOWING PRESENTATION
CONTAINS COARSE LANGUAGE AND
DUE TO ITS CONTENT IT SHOULD
NOT BE VIEWED BY ANYONE.
10
Everything we talk about in this presentation is a model and a slight simplification of reality. The
company is changing very fast and experiments are always on-going. This means that others in the
company would probably describe some things differently, and some would only recognize parts of
this. But in general, this is the way it looks and works in Spotify – right now, in some places.
Continuously improving the way we work - whole company understands we are always changing

11. Autonomy
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Controlling management approaches assume people are passive and inert and require
prodding. Autonomy approaches assume people are active, looking for interesting work and
curious and self-engaging. Autonomous motivation has proven to promote greater
conceptual understanding, result in better grades, enhance persistence at school and in
sporting activities, generate higher productivity, less burnout, and greater levels of
psychological well-being.

12. Autonomous squad
• “Feel like a mini-startup”
• Self-organizing
• Cross-functional
• 5-7 engineers, less than 10
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It should feel like working in a mini-start-up where Spotify is more of an incubator for start-
ups.
“The most important feature of the organization is the autonomous squad. All other
features are designed to support that mini-startup-like squad.”

13. Pics of squad rooms
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Co-located. Squad room. Open yet closed off. Optimize for collaboration.

14. 14
Lounge connected to every squad room, no need to book meeting rooms. Stand-ups,
whiteboard sessions, …
Quiet room, small meetings.
War rooms.

15. 15
Fika zones, fika as “meeting”
format.

16. Autonomous squad
surveys
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Definition of what we mean with ”autonomous squad”. We also measure, to see where a
squad might need support.

17. Clear mission
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The squad has a defined mission to fulfill
Squad works on mission for long time (not just finish first product, then change mission) –
allowing members to become domain-experts
The majority of the stories on the squad backlog are related to the mission
Everyone in the squad understands the mission
There is passion and dedication for the mission
http://www.flickr.com/photos/roland_urbanek/4712188695/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/calsidyrose/4925267732/

18. Example squads
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Search
Radio
Content
Payments

19. Dedicated PO
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Has enough time for the squad and is considered part of the squad
Manages and prioritizes a squad backlog together with the squad that everyone in the squad
has easy access to
Can motivate stories and priorities
Clearly communicates the goal of a story, and the vision for the sprint
Takes tech aspects in consideration
Makes sure that stories are prepared enough before sprint planning
Can make decisions during the sprint without waiting for feedback from senior product staff

20. Process that fits
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Each squad owns their own process – adapt it to their circumstances and context. Kanban
and continuous flow, Scrum by the book – 1-3 week sprints
The squad is familiar with the Spotify development process and follows the common rules or
can motivates why they don't
The squad have agreed within the group on how to work
The squad regularly retrospects and do things to improve

21. Easy to get stuff live
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Everyone needed to complete and release a story is in the squad
- Both in terms of owning the decision, and having technical capacity to do it
A squad can independently decide on when to go live with a release, a minimum of syncing
with other squads should be needed
Most squads try to go live with something every sprint, or more often. Some squads launch
things several times each week.

22. Influence work
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Before every sprint all squad members can influence what is to be planned (both product
features and tech stories)
During the sprint the squad makes decisions regarding stories together with the product
owner. No micro management.Tech debt, maintainability & scalability stories are part of the
squad backlog.Part of the sprint backlog should always be tech improvements.The squad
can refuse to start development if there isn’t sufficient information about what to do.The
squad members decide how to carry out their work and who is working on what.Every sprint
contains 0.5 hack days per week.Every system owner has 1 system owner day/three week
sprint

23. Hack days
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Use 10% of your time for side-projects – sometimes synchronize hack days or hack weeks
for squad or org

24. 24
http://labs.spotify.com/2013/02/15/organizing-a-hack-week/

25. Organizational support
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Tribe lead or similar is available and aware of the squad's workThe squad knows who to turn
to for guidance or problem solving supportSupport is available for architectural / technical
discussions as well as for "soft" issues

26. Agile coach
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Support autonomy in the organization
Helps squads identify impediments and learning opportunities, coaches squad to
continuously improve working methods and process

27. Are we there yet?
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Run survey with multiple squads – goal is to do it every quarter.
Patterns – e.g. Agile coach needed, need to improve releasability (technical,
organizational, ...)

28. AGENDA 12th Feb
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Scaling
Challenges
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29. Mastery
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Mastery is the desire to get better at something that matters. First, mastery is a mindset, in
that we either believe we can get better or we don’t. Second, mastery is a pain, in that it
involves not only working harder but working longer at the same thing. Finally, mastery is an
asymptote, or a straight line that you may come close to but never reach.

30. Chapters
PO PO PO PO
Chapter
Chapter
Squad Squad Squad Squad
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Special Interest/Competence groups – web development chapter, backend development chapter, QA
chapter, payment chapter, etc.
Share knowledge, learn from each other, personal development together
Identify common challenges
Talk about good practices, decide on architecture, coding standards, etc.
Learn technical skills – e.g. Test-driven development

31. Chapter Lead
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Servant leadership
Coaching, mentoring
1:1 every week
Usually 50/50 squad work/chapter lead
Sometimes work in same squad, but not necessarily

32. Great colleagues
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Very high hiring
standards

33. Personal development
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Not typical management career path only, experimenting with “add-ons”, e.g., Expert, Teacher, Coach

34. Training programs
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Training, Lunch & learn, Tech talks, Webinars, etc
Management training, Leadership forum

35. AGENDA 12th Feb
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Scaling
Challenges
35

36. Purpose
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At Spotify we are on a mission to change the world – to make it possible to play everywhere,
and to find the right music for every moment.
We want everyone at Spotify to feel that what they do every day connects to this mission and
this purpose.
So, how does this connect to our daily lives and the tasks we do?

37. Squad purpose
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38. OKR
Objective
Key Result
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OKR - connect company vision to daily tasks
Objective – Key result
Objective – longer vision, might take more than a quarter to achieve
Key results – measurable goals for the quarter
OKR for all of company
OKR for all of tech
OKR for whole squad
OKR for chapter
Sometimes personal OKR

39. Product owner
PO
Purpose
Mastery Why/
What
Chapter lead
How Squad member
Chapter lead
How Squad member
Ho
w
Autonomy
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Product owner – answer why are we doing this, what are we doing?
Chapter lead – support in how we solve it, what we do
Agile coach – support autonomy, facilitate discussions – supports whole squad
So for an engineer – this is how they get their Purpose, Mastery and Autonomy

40. AGENDA 12th Feb
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Scaling
Challenges
40

41. Scaling
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42. Quality manager
Project manager
coordination
Release manager
coordination
Configuration
manager
Change
Change manager
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We need release coordination -> hire a release manager, project coordination -> hire a project
manager, change mgmt, configuration manager, etc

43. Scaling
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… and so you end up with this
Departments

44. Tribes
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45. Tribes
Tribe Tribe
PO PO PO PO PO PO PO PO
Chapter Chapter
Chapter Chapter
Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad
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Everyone working within software engineering is divided into a set of tribes containing
20-100 people each.
Dunbar number - <150 people, so we recognize and know everyone
The following applies to each tribe:
Clear and defined mission
High level of autonomy within each tribe
Tribes are joined by a set of foundation principles that apply to all tribes
Lead by a senior experienced leader (named tribe lead) responsible for all dimensions of the
tribe (people, process, technology & culture)
All skills necessary to produce live product features and code are present within the tribe,
and thus the tribe can build cool stuff end to end
A squad resides within one and only one tribe (people may be borrowed between
tribes)Some tribes have a matrix organization, others not.

46. Tribe Tribe Tribe Tribe
”Provide fast and
reliable access to all
the world's music”
Tribe Tribe Tribe
”Enable high product
development speed
while maintaining a
highly available
service”
46
We have 6 tribes in Spotify right now – from 3 to 9 squads
Each tribe is co-located in one site
Mission for tribe
Similar contexts and challenges

47. 47
Tribe demos, gatherings, knowledge sharing, …

48. Network organization
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Avoid going “up-and-down the hierarchy”
Squads always collaborate directly with each other
Tribe borders are not hard – they are support function, not departments
Creates a network organization
Shifting fast since collaborations start and stop all the time

49. Dependencies
Tribe Tribe
PO PO PO PO PO PO PO PO
Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad
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Dependencies between teams – technical dependencies, organizational dependencies
(overlapping product, mission), knowledge dependencies
Never let yourself be blocked. CTO says “Get shit done”, CEO says “When in doubt, do
something”
Important to understand dependencies – collect data
Dependencies and collaborations – same thing.
No problem – slowing – blocking – future

50. On-demand
Scrum-of-Scrums
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Scrum-of-scrum common pattern – too static, our organization is changing all the time
On-demand scrum-of-scrum exists between different squads for short periods of time
This example – spring 2012, big project (several squads, several months), scrum-of-scrum
progress/blockers/dependencies

51. Architecture
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SOA, loosely coupled

52. System Owner
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53. Guilds
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A Guild is a community of interest, a group of people with similar engineering skills that
share knowledge, tools and code across the whole of Spotify.
For example a backend guild, web guild, QA guild, agile guild

54. Guilds
Tribe Tribe
PO PO PO PO PO PO PO PO
Chapter Chapter
Chapter Chapter
Guild
Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad Squad
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A Guild is an open community, so anyone can join any guild.
Automatic membership if you are in that chapter – opt-out if you want to
Opt-in for anyone else in company
You can join multiple guilds, depending on your interest.
All guild activities are optional by default. As guild member, you can choose how active or
inactive you want to be in the guild.
Each guild has a Guild Coordinator (or pair) who is main contact person for the guild,
"bootstraps" the guild to enable self-organization, ideally trying to get rid of the need for a
guild coordinator role.

55. 55
Guild unconference – a whole day of lightning talks and Open Space. Good format, very popular

56. 56
Agile coaches

57. “Big Projects”
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https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1018963/Articles/HowSpotifyBuildsProducts.pdf

58. Big Retrospeci
Big retrospectives
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http://joakimsunden.com/2013/01/running-big-retrospectives-at-spotify/

59. Town Hall
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Town hall where CEO address whole company every two weeks. Q & A with top management.

60. Company values
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Not just Technology, other departments too. E.g., “Think it, Build it, Ship it, Tweak it”.
“Get shit done”
“When in doubt, do something”

61. Organizational
improvement
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62. AGENDA 12th Feb
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Scaling
Challenges
62

63. Challenges
63

64. AGENDA 12th Feb
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Scaling
Challenges
64

65. 65
Questions?

66. Anders Ivarsson Joakim Sundén
@anders_ivarsson @joakimsunden
aivarsson@spotify.com joakim.sunden@spotify.com
www.joakimsunden.com
66