The Weekly ReBoot - Bonus Episode! - Erin at Spotify in New York
The Weekly ReBoot your regular Friday de-brief of things we’ve heard and seen coming from the Agile Community here in Melbourne and beyond.
Erin McManus lives in New York and works at Spotify! Complete with New York sirens in the background we talk about what it’s like working there.
Having the scale that Spotify has requires the need for smooth execution to increase the likely-hood of success and coaching is one way to help with that.
Erin comments that the Technical Engineering practices of Envato - a place where we both have worked in the past - were of a high standard, so we have high expectations of software development teams, and there’s a mix at Spotify.
Erin talks about the Hyper scaling at Spotify and how it means coaches are as relevant as ever.
There is sometimes an underlying skepticism of coaches adding value, like anywhere the value of coaching needs to be articulated. The way you work and how you work relies on how good the coaches are in the teams. Coaches reduce friction in how we collaborate, make things work smoothly, having coaches around generally helps that.
What helped Erin was demonstrating value, getting stuck-in and helping teams and showing teams you have impact reduces the skepticism.
Of course I couldn't resist asking the question - Is there such a thing as The Spotify Model?
Interestingly the commonality of ways are working centre on things like - the language that is used: Tribes, Squads, Chapters the way they organise, but it’s not prescriptive and those videos are considered a snap-shot in time and perhaps aspirational. People are ok to own and come up with their own ways of working.
Spotify Engineering Culture Part 1
Spotify Engineering Culture Part 2
Ways of working seems to be something that is created with intention and collaboratively.
Experimentation happens to allow things to change.
On Culture I ask - Is there a common Culture? Investment in alignment, sharing, transparency and also celebration helps with the challenges of the scale of Spotify, not to mention investment in the onboarding of new employees.
Read up on the Swedish ritual of Fika here!
Pleasingly it does seem that Culture is positive, alive and well at Spotify so we can all keep feeling good about the company that really woke us all up to how Agile ways of working can be an integral lever in the success of such a digital giant.
Will we ever get Erin back to Melbourne? Let’s hope so!
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