AGILE

Spotify Agile Implementation

Summary Report
Team 2

AD5128 Digital Transformation

 Claudia Chinas A01451489

 Cheyene Ibarra A00785049
 Eduardo Ahumada A00610248
 Carlos Albo A00813749
 Adrián Sanchez A01451503
Summary

Company Profile..............................................................................................................................3
Agile Practices Implemented.........................................................................................................3
Contribution to Success..............................................................................................................5
Measuring Success and Metrics Used.........................................................................................6
Lessons for Other Organizations...................................................................................................6
Conclusions......................................................................................................................................6
Bibliography......................................................................................................................................7
Company Profile
Swedish-based audio streaming and a media services provider founded in
April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. The platform offers digital
Copyright-restricted recorded music and podcasts, including ~100 million songs in
its platform as of Q1 2023 from record labels and media companies, operating
through the following segments: Premium and Add-Supported. As of June 2023,
Spotify is available in over 183 countries and has ~515 million active users / ~210
million paying subscribers.

Agile Practices Implemented

Spotify developed its own unique Agile framework, commonly referred to as

the "Spotify Model."

Figure 1: Spotify Agile Model

Key elements include:

 Squads (equivalent to a Scrum Team): Small cross-functional teams (maximum

8 persons) that work autonomously on specific features or services. Each
squad has its own mission, backlog, and lead. The key feature is their
autonomy and must be aligned to the Mission, Product Strategy and Short-
Term goals. The Squad Leader is responsible for communicating any issues
encountered and conveying a required proposal to solve the matter. Staying
true to agile, squads work in short sprints to deliver value to the customer.
 Figure 2: Squads

 Tribes: Collections of squads that work in related areas. Its primary purpose is
to facilitate collaboration between other squads. Tribe's goal is to have the
squads focus on a product, for instance the development of additional functions
or features for mobile applications. They are allocated in the same physical
space and there are a maximum of 100 Squads in a tribe (Generally there are
less squads in a tribe).

Figure 3: Tribes

 Chapters: Like traditional departments, chapters group individuals with the

same specialty or skillset to share knowledge and best practices.

Figure 4: Chapters
 Guilds: Are informal cross-tribe groups where members share interests, tools,
or practices. This organization looks like an interest community joined by
people across the whole company that want to share knowledge about a
specific area. In other words, it works as an open community, where anyone
can join or move out at any given time in the guild. An individual can be in one
or several guilds and decide the level of participation in each one. Individuals
can also develop guides outside of the Company's business interests.

Figure 5: Guilds

Contribution to Success

Agile methodology is a flexible approach to software development that

emphasizes collaboration, feedback, and adaptation. In a brief period, Spotify was
able to develop a framework to achieve its goals by adopting an agile scaling
method that involves every individual in the organization.

This Model allows a high degree of autonomy among teams, promoting

innovation and open collaboration. By giving squads the freedom to make
decisions and choose their own tools, they build a resilient environment which
adapts to changes and delivers features that improve user experience. Also
promotes continuous learning and improvement through regular feedback loops
and retrospective from their peers.

By implementing agile methodology Spotify has achieved success in terms

of customer satisfaction, value to shareholders, market share and brand
recognition.
Measuring Success and Metrics Used by Spotify
 Delivery Speed: Time taken from ideation to feature release.
 Customer Satisfaction: Using a Net Promoter Score or (NPS) and other user
feedback mechanisms to gauge user contentment with new features.
 Team Health: Regular health checks were conducted to assess squad morale,
alignment, and overall satisfaction.
 Innovation Rate: The number of new features or improvements released over a
set period. Spotify allowed its employees to dedicate 10% of their time to a
personal project.

Lessons for Other Organizations

1. Autonomy and Alignment: While teams (squads) should have the autonomy to
make decisions, it is crucial to align to the company's overall Mission, Vision,
and Goals.
2. Scale with Care: As organizations grow, it is essential to maintain the Agile
spirit. Scaling should not come at the cost of bureaucracy or reduced speed.
Open collaboration builds rapport within the individuals in the organization and
should encourage momentum and prevent stalling projects.
3. Culture Over Frameworks: While frameworks provide structure, it is the culture
of continuous improvement, learning, flexibility, and adaptability that drives
Agile success.
4. Feedback is Essential: Regular feedback, both from users and teams, is vital to
iterate, improve, and deliver value consistently.
5. Establish clear roles and responsibilities: For each team member, such as
product owner, agile coach, developer, designer, etc.
6. Use visual tools: Some of these tools are highly effective to communicate and
collaborate effectively, some examples are kanban boards, scrum meetings
and retrospectives.

Conclusions
In conclusion, Spotify's unique approach to Agile methodology highlights the
importance of adaptability, team autonomy, and a strong feedback loop. Their
success confirms that Agile is about mindset and culture as much as specific
practices or frameworks.

This method allows the building of cross-functional teams with different skill
sets and capabilities, fostering collaboration and positively impacting work quality
and delivery speed. The model allows you to fail and use it to learn valuable
lessons, which builds a culture of growth and learning.
 However, it is a model that can lead to silos forming between different teams
or departments, as each team focus on its individual goals and expertise, and it
may minimize the need for cross-functional communication and collaboration.

Specific metrics and KPIs will help determine whether the model is
achieving objectives and identify improvement areas. All the team should be on the
same page before implementing.

Following Spotify model implementation is proof of the methodology's

success, but the feasibility must be examined and researched prior to its execution
in any firm, as every culture and business have their differences.
Bibliography
 Cruth, Mark. Discover the Spotify Model. Atlassian.
https://www.atlassian.com/agile/agile-at-scale/spotify
 Gisclard-Blondi, Henri. “Everything There is to Know About the Spotify Agile
Model.” Appvizer. https://www.appvizer.com/magazine/operations/project-
management/spotify-agile-model April 20th, 2021.
 Gupta, Abhinav. “What is the Spotify Model in Agile?” LogRocket Frontend
Analytics. https://blog.logrocket.com/product-management/what-is-the-spotify-
model-agile/ April 26th, 2023.