What is Spotify agile framework?

Spotify was first introduced in 2012 by Henrik Kniberg and Ander Ivarsson. Henrick Kniberg mentions that Spotify is not a framework or a model but rather it is just an example of how the company works. This was implemented in the company Spotify and they have scaled it to over 30 teams in 3 cities.

Terminologies in Spotify agile framework

• Squad – The team is called a Squad. It is similar to a Scrum team. A Squad is an autonomous team with direct contact with stakeholders. Every Squad has a Product Owner who is responsible for prioritizing the work. A Squad has access to an Agile Coach who helps them in the way of working.
• Tribes – A group of teams that works in related areas is called Tribes. Each tribe has a tribe lead who is responsible for providing the best possible habitat for the squads within that tribe. Tribes meet regularly and share knowledge, tools, and techniques.
• Chapters – A Chapter is a small family of people with similar skills and working with the same general competency area. For Example – All the UI/UX engineers will report to one manager. Every Chapter has a Chapter Lead and the Chapter members report to the Chapter Lead. A Chapter Lead is part of a squad and is involved in the daily activities of the squad.
• Guilds – A Guild is a more organic and wide-reaching “community of interest”, a group of people that want to share knowledge, tools, code, and practices. For example, the Agile Coach Guild, and Product Owner Guild.
• System Owner – For Ownership of the System, a pair of system owners ( 1 from development and 1 from Operations) are assigned and they are responsible for any changes to the systems in terms of system stability, managing operational risks and releases.

Conclusion

Spotify is neither a model nor a framework, it is a way of working that has key structures, practices, and mindset that enable Spotify to perform. According to Henrik Kniberg, Spotify was valuable to the company at that time. It is a unique instance of Scrum@Scale suitable for that moment. Spotify no longer uses the way of working that was established as this is ever-evolving. Spotify is not a scaling framework, hence do not consider it for organizational transformation.

Source – https://blog.crisp.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SpotifyScaling.pdf