Adapting the Spotify Model to Your Organization

A pilot-first approach to Spotify model implementation: adapt squads, tribes, chapters and guilds to your company's size, culture and architecture.

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At a Glance

Overview

Adapting the Spotify model means building your own version of it for your company rather than installing Spotify's. It covers the practical side of a Spotify model implementation: choosing which structures to use, changing them to fit your size, culture and architecture, testing them in a pilot, and deciding whether to extend them. For background on where the model came from and why it should not be copied as is, see the method page.

Adaptation is what the model's authors and observers recommend. Henrik Kniberg, who co-wrote the original description, wrote that companies copying the model can benefit, mainly because looking at your own organization critically and taking inspiration from others is valuable, "As long as you adapt to your local context" (Kniberg). Atlassian's summary gives the same advice: understand the structure, practices and mindset behind Spotify's approach, then tweak them to fit your environment (Atlassian).

ING's is one of the better-documented large adaptations. Its executives describe a model inspired by several technology companies "which we then adapted to our own business", starting with pilot squads and using the lessons to adjust the design before implementing it across headquarters (McKinsey Quarterly). They also warn against taking only some building blocks while keeping the old organizational structure and governance, which they say defeats the purpose.

The output of this skill is an adaptation design and a pilot plan: the elements you are adopting and how you are changing each, the pilot area, the decision rights, the success measures, and the point at which you decide whether to go further.

How It Works

Adaptation starts with problems rather than structures. Marcin Floryan of Spotify argued that you should not start from a model or a book, but look at what you want to achieve and use whatever helps you get there (InfoQ). So the first input is a short list of the problems the organization wants to solve, and the second is an honest picture of its current structure, architecture and culture.

Each element of the model then gets one of three treatments: adopt as described, adapt, or skip. Common adaptations address the model's known weak points. Chapters can keep their craft role while line management sits with an engineering manager per squad, answering the accountability gap Jeremiah Lee describes (Lee). Squads can keep freedom over their internal process while agreeing a small set of shared practices for working together, which a former Spotify coach Lee quotes calls "minimum viable agility". Tribes can be skipped entirely until there are enough squads to need them.

Architecture shapes what is possible. Conway's law says a system's design tends to mirror the organization's communication structure, and the practical corollary is that squad boundaries that cut across a tightly coupled codebase create dependencies no reorganization can remove. Adapted squad boundaries should follow the parts of the system teams can actually own, and the plan should include the technical work needed to make more of it ownable.

A pilot limits risk and produces evidence. ING's executives describe setting up five or six pilot squads in parallel with the design work and using the lessons to adapt the setup, working environment and overall design before rolling out (McKinsey Quarterly). They also say it took about eight or nine months from writing the strategy to having the new organization in place across headquarters. A pilot needs a fixed period, measures agreed in advance, and a decision point.

Culture carries the adaptation. ING's Bart Schlatmann calls culture "perhaps the most important element" of the change, and describes leaders spending a lot of time modeling the behavior they wanted. A structure adopted without that change in behavior tends to revert to the old habits under new names.

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Audit your current structure and dependencies

Document how teams are organized today, how work flows between them, and where it waits. Survey teams about which other teams they depend on and whether each dependency blocks or slows them. Map how code is built and released, and which parts teams can release on their own. Note how decisions are made and who approves what. This audit is the baseline the pilot will be compared against.

Step 2: Match model elements to real problems

List the problems the audit shows and rank them. For each, note which element of the model addresses it: cross-functional squads for hand-offs, tribes for coordination among many squads, chapters for isolated specialists, guilds for duplicated tools and knowledge. Mark elements that address none of your top problems as candidates to skip. If you have not already, run a fuller evaluation of the tradeoffs for each element.

Step 3: Design your version of each element

For each element you keep, write down how your version differs from the original and why. Decide who line-manages engineers, whether squads share any process, how big tribes may get, and whether you need tribes at all yet. Use names your people will understand; the words are optional, and Lee argues that plain terms such as teams and departments communicate better. Keep the design to a few pages.

Step 4: Choose a pilot area

Pick one product area whose squads can be made largely independent, with a leader who wants to try the new structure. Avoid the area with the heaviest dependencies for the first pilot, because its problems will be architectural rather than organizational. Make sure the pilot is large enough to test the elements you care about; a chapter needs several people with the same skill, and a tribe needs several squads.

Step 5: Define decision rights

Write down who decides what in the pilot: what each squad works on, how work is done, who is on each squad, who manages each person, and how conflicts between squads and chapters are settled. Share this before the pilot starts. Unclear decision rights are where a pilot most often slides back into the old way of working.

Step 6: Set success measures and a decision point

Agree in advance what would show the pilot is working: time from idea to release, the number of blocking dependencies, squad health check results, and feedback from stakeholders. Take a baseline from the audit. Fix a pilot period, often a few months, and a date when leadership will decide to extend, adjust or stop. Writing the decision criteria down before starting keeps the review honest.

Step 7: Launch the pilot with clear communication

Explain to everyone involved what is changing, why, what will be measured, and that the design will be adjusted based on what is learned. Explain also what is not changing. Form the pilot squads with their missions, product owners and charters, and start the chapter and guild arrangements you designed. Give the pilot a named sponsor who can remove obstacles quickly.

Step 8: Review, adjust and decide whether to extend

Run squad health checks, repeat the dependency survey, and compare the measures with the baseline. Adjust the design where evidence shows a problem, as ING did with its pilot squads. At the decision point, extend the design to more areas, adjust and run another cycle, or stop. Document what you changed and why so later areas start from the improved version.

Best Practices

• Start from the problems. An element that does not address a real problem adds vocabulary and overhead without benefit.
• Change the management design deliberately. Deciding who owns delivery and who manages whom before launch avoids a failure that critics of the model describe in detail.
• Pilot before rolling out. A pilot shows how the design behaves with your people and systems, and ING used its pilot squads to adapt the setup before implementing it more widely.
• Change behavior as well as structure. Leaders who keep approving every decision undo any structure; plan how leadership habits will change.
• Use the words that help. Squads, tribes and chapters are optional labels, and plain terms may communicate better in your company.
• Keep adapting after launch. Spotify's own structure kept changing, and so should yours as the organization grows.

Common Mistakes

• Copying the org chart: Reproducing Spotify's structure without asking which problems it solves imports the model's costs without its benefits. Adapt each element to a problem you have.
• Keeping the old structure alongside the new: Running new squads while old departments still control decisions and budgets produces confusion. ING's executives describe this as defeating the purpose.
• Piloting in the hardest area first: An area with heavy technical dependencies will struggle whatever the structure, and the pilot will be judged a failure for the wrong reason. Start where independence is achievable.
• No success measures: Without a baseline and agreed measures, the review becomes a debate of opinions. Set them before launch.
• Treating the design as final: A design that is never changed after the pilot ignores the evidence the pilot produced. Plan explicit review points.

References

• Examples: Worked examples and scenarios
• FAQ: Frequently asked questions
• Parent Method: The Spotify Model

Related Skills

• Evaluating Spotify Model Tradeoffs and Failure Modes
• Forming Autonomous Squads with Clear Missions
• Organizing Squads into Tribes for Alignment
• Running Chapters for Craft Excellence
• Building Guilds for Cross-Tribe Knowledge Sharing
• Balancing Squad Autonomy with Organizational Alignment
• Scaling Agile with Spotify Squads and Tribes

Sources

• Henrik Kniberg: No, I didn't invent the Spotify model
• Atlassian: Discover the Spotify model
• McKinsey Quarterly: ING's agile transformation
• InfoQ: Don't Copy the Spotify Model
• Jeremiah Lee: Spotify's Failed #SquadGoals
• Mel Conway: Conway's Law

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