The Spotify Model as an Example of Scalable Agile

If you work in an organization that is adopting or has already adopted Agile, you may have come across terms like Squad, Tribe, Chapter, and so on.

These names are not mentioned in the Scrum Guide, and it’s not entirely clear where they come from.

In reality, these are terms from the Agile model used by Spotify.

Spotify, a streaming service founded in 2006, allowing legal streaming of music, audiobooks, and podcasts without downloading them to the device.

Spotify is a 100% Agile company that started with the Scrum framework. However, as their teams grew, they noticed that some elements of the Scrum framework didn’t work for them. Therefore, they decided to change some Scrum roles, artifacts, and events.

Spotify’s engineers understood that Agile is more important than Scrum, and principles are more critical than specific practices. As a result, they renamed the Scrum Master to Agile Coach because they wanted more of a “serving leader” than “process masters.” They also renamed Scrum teams to Squads, and so on.

The structure used by the company for the flexible scaling of different teams located in different places became known as the Spotify model.

Squad

A Squad is a small, cross-functional, self-organizing team, usually consisting of fewer than eight people. Team members have overlapping responsibilities, and they work together to achieve their long-term mission. Autonomy is a key factor in Squads. The team doesn’t have a separate team lead, but there is a dedicated Product Owner.

Each Squad decides independently what to develop, how to develop it, and how to work together during development. However, the Squad must operate in line with the Squad’s mission, product strategy, and short-term goals.

How Squads Work at Spotify?

As Spotify has many different Squads, they needed to create some structure. Each Squad is grouped into a Tribe, which has a head. In this setup, you can change the composition without changing the manager. They also have a Guild, representing an interest community that uses a mailing list or another informal method of communication within Spotify.

Now, a bit more detail about the Spotify structure.

Tribe

A Tribe is a group of Squads linked by the nature of the work they perform. For example, several groups working together on the same product function or closely related product functions/one product in the portfolio of different products.

The recommended number of people in a Tribe, according to Dunbar’s number, is about 100. Dunbar’s number is a hypothetical limit on the number of stable social relationships that can be maintained, depending on the volume of the neocortex. According to Dunbar’s calculations, it was considered to be 150.

In a Tribe, there is a Tribe Lead responsible for creating a productive and innovative environment for Squads. The Tribe Lead may also be part of a Squad.

Chapter

A Chapter brings together specialists in specific disciplines/technological areas within a Tribe. For example, QA engineers, database specialists, front-end and back-end developers, UX/UI specialists. People performing these functions in several Squads of one Tribe come together in a Chapter.

Each Chapter regularly meets to discuss its achievements and issues in their respective knowledge areas, for example, QA Chapter, UX Chapter, DB Chapter.

In a Chapter, there is a Chapter Lead who can guide different Chapter members on “how” best to accomplish a task. The Chapter Lead can also be the direct manager of Chapter members, performing traditional managerial duties such as people development, career growth, etc. The Chapter Lead is also a member of one of the Squads in the Tribe, allowing them to understand issues from within.

All Chapter Leads in a Tribe usually report to the Tribe Lead, and the Tribe Lead performs all managerial duties for Chapter Leads in their Tribe.

Guild

A Guild is like an “interest community” covering Tribes throughout the organization, where people gather and share knowledge in a specific area.

Imagine an organization with three Tribes, each located in three different places. Depending on the location, each Tribe may have its QA Chapter. It is necessary for the members of the QA Chapter of one Tribe to exchange processes and knowledge with the members of the QA Chapter of the other two Tribes. The Guild serves precisely this purpose.

Henrik Kniberg, one of the contributors to the development of the way of working within Spotify, in response to the growing popularity of the Spotify model and its copying in other companies, claimed that the Spotify model is not a team scaling framework. Also, he stated that the Spotify model is not strictly a “model” as such but rather an example of how work is organized in a specific company.