The Spotify Model as an Inspiration
The so-called Spotify Model is widely known as an approach for scaling Agile, focusing on workers’ collaboration in autonomous squads to empower businesses’ productivity. It helped Spotify late in 2011, and many other companies worldwide. Today, the company doesn’t use it fully anymore, but it’s part of their organizational agility. Its author and Agile expert Henri Kniberg gives a lot of lectures on the main characteristics of this model, and how it inspired other companies.
Spotify is famous for its music player which provides limitless music content. It was created in 2008, then it grew large to a company with 1,600 collaborators. They used to utilize the scrum methodology, but after this growth, they jumped to Agile Scaling. Now it has at least 30 agile teams and is present in 3 continents.
Their Agile Scaling Method is not only an example for companies on organizational agility but also a lesson on how to develop a proactive employee mindset.
It’s important to say that there is a difference between getting inspiration from a company model like this and applying it entirely to your company. For some businesses, the Spotify Model might fit perfectly as a formula. However, we must point that companies are as diverse as people, and each one has its corporate culture. So, before you take this or any other model for a miracle, you should take into consideration that certain models can only promote change if the internal culture changes first.
The Spotify Model is not a technology, framework, or methodology like Scrum, Kanban, and others. Create organizational agility motivating your squads with GitScrum Sprints
Structure of the Spotify Model for Organizational Agility
SQUADS
is the name for small (8-people) multidisciplinary teams of this model, which is the form of organization designed to run complete development cycles and promote faster deliveries.
PRODUCT OWNER
is the squad leader who guides their work and priorities.
AUTONOMY
is one of the main characteristics of this model since the squads receive quarter goals and freedom on how to design, develop and collaborate to return the results. Companies reduce approvals stages and bureaucracy, delegating more and trusting a greater part of work to specialists.
ALIGNMENT
is the basis to prepare the squads so they hand the best results.
CHAPTERS
are competence areas usually with leaders, like product quality, agile coaching or development.
CHAPTER LEAD
is a manager who supports the development of a specific product of a competence.
TRIBES
are multiple squads coordinating or collaborating together on the same project or feature.
TRIBE LEADER
guides business goals to tribes.
GUILDS
are communities of volunteers who focus on practicing and tests, and interact with squads and tribes.
Create multiple workspaces to manage your squads with GitScrum.
Become Agile with Project Management, being Inspired by the Spotify Model
Build Independent Workspaces and Workboards for your Squads
For your teams to work and collaborate dynamically, they need an appropriate platform, to be able to post requests and their tasks’ progress, exchange information, complete all product feedback loops and reviews. They need to manage their own assignments and update them promptly to their superiors. Meet GitScrum Board, the ideal tool for teamwork.
Encourage Content Collaboration
What’s more worth, money or knowledge? Well, you can probably make a lot more money from knowledge. Do you know how much useful knowledge your team workers store inside their heads? Are they being asked to pull that out? Spotify has a lot to teach on this since they could take advantage of their employees’ cultural diversity. Do you know what’s best? It’s not something expensive or difficult to do. And it makes people feel valued. You can create your company’s collaborative area and ask everyone in your teams to post ideas, references, stories, benchmarking, and anything that can anticipate your research process. Create a collaborative environment with GitScrum Wiki
Stimulate Creativity and Strategic Thinking
Some professionals are supposed to be creative because of their professions – namely designers, publicists, advertising artists, art directors. Creativity in a company does not come exclusively from them, though. Everybody can be creative at some point. Even these professionals who are able to deliver creative ideas faster can be stimulated with techniques to perform even better. In fact, having ideas is not so hard, selecting them and maturing them into a plan, making the appropriate connections according to your business is more challenging. When you allow teams to do creative and strategic brainstorms about products and services, you encourage autonomy, since they develop solutions and bring proposals to managers and superiors. Use GitScrum Mind Mapping, the best tool for creative brainstorms.
Provide Managers Appropriate Monitoring of Projects
Help managers and product owners to get an overview of their team or projects’ activities going on, with fast access to their progress. Leaving information handy makes a total difference for organizational agility.
What you should use is a powerful graphical representation of the uniting waterfall model with the agile methodology that is beneficial for planning and scheduling projects, and that is called Gantt Charts. Meet GitScrum Gantt Charts, the ultimate tool for product owners.
Manage Time, Tracking all Your Activities
Educate all your team leaders, managers, supervisors, coordinators, and even employees to keep time awareness. Make it clear that all tasks must be time measurable, for their own benefit, as well as the companies. Tracking time is the basis for budgeting, team empowering, and everything that impacts your profitability. Meet GitScrum Time Tracking.
Reach Productivity with Autonomy
The Spotify model has shown that autonomy is not incompatible with productivity. To ensure productivity and allow workers to manage their own workload, on the other hand, it’s recommendable that you offer them means to track their tasks and deadlines. Stand by a tool that makes them feel positively challenged to improve constantly and do better each week. Encourage productivity with GitScrum Sprints
Motivate and Reward Your Teams
Spotify has investigated their particularities and discovered autonomy and respect for diverse cultures were important motivational aspects for their teams. Each business or region has a different history and profile, but it’s a good perspective for any company to have an interest in what matters the most to their teams. Nevertheless, there is a successful technique to motivate staff, which Spotified also used itself. It’s called Gamification! It works very well to integrate multicultural teams, especially for your collaborators, but the elderly will also have fun. It consists of motivating and rewarding professional performance improvements, with healthy competitiveness. Meet GitScrum Rock Star Team and see your team rock!
Promote User-focused Innovation
Many companies only seek customer’s and workers’ information after they release products and services. Post selling action is important, but it’s far from enough if you want organizational agility. The Spotify Model inspires us to allow squads to add customer information in all development stages, for constant improvements. For this, tech companies created User Stories, a simple form to send customers’ and collaborators’ requests to developers and designers. Any kind of business can benefit from this functional and effective tool. Drive Customer-based innovation with GitScrum User Stories.
Allow Your Clients to Contribute
Not only does your project need end-users information, but it needs your clients’ and contractors’ contribution.
You should include them in several stages of your process. Use Agile to assure good communication on their expectations, allow them to access end-customers data and collaborate with ideas to projects.
When you involve them so much, you save extra time on phone calls, messages, and emails. Get professional GitScrum White Label for the best client communication platform.