to speed through failure

To Speed Through Failure & Other Related Concepts

Marcus Frödin @marcusf #sparkconf

Hi - I’m Marcus!

What we will cover‣ Org Primer

‣ The Apps Platform Failure

‣ What innovation looks like

‣ The Shift To Mobile

‣ Rituals & Culture

‣ After The Apps Platform

“Spotify is the only organisation I have ever seen that

treats simple problems as complex, instead of the other

way around.”

Simon Marcus, VP Strategy Operations. At Spotify.

With that a disclaimer

We think a lot about organisations, and that shows. If it sounds complicated for the sake of complicated, it might be.

This stuff works for us, today. I make no claims we’ll use it tomorrow, or that it’ll work for you.

Finally, this is my very personal take on our org. Many Spotifiers will likely disagree.

How we organise

Squad Squad Squad

Squad Squad Squad

Tribe

Squad Squad Squad

TribeSquad Squad

TribeSquad

Tribe Tribe

Alliance

Squad Squad Squad SquadSquadSquad

Tribe TribeAlliance


Tribe TribeAlliance


Tribe TribeAlliance

Squad Squad SquadSquadSquad

Tribe TribeAlliance


Tribe TribeAlliance

Squad Squad SquadSquadSquad

TPD

What’s all this?

We want to be

Optimized for growth, retention and experimentation.

Able to hold local leaders very much accountable.

Really good at getting it wrong quickly.

Embarrassingly parallel.

Faster, rather than more quality-minded.

Embarrassingly parallell and good at failing

Distance (Org/Time/Space)

Cost

Distance (Org/Time/Space)

CostNeed

Squads are collocated, sat closest to codependent missions and have all necessary

components to move forward.

Information

Information Decisions

Information Decisions

Obvious massive anti pattern

Intent

Hypothesis

Intent

Hypothesis

IntentLearning

Hypothesis

IntentLearning

Key trait:

Asynchronous

Alig

nmen

t

Autonomy

Feedback

Leaders spend time setting intent and helping propagate knowledge.

SQUAD

TRIB

ETR

IBE

TRIB

E

TRIB

ETR

IBE

TRIB

E

TRIB

ETR

IBE

TRIB

E

SQUAD

SQUADSQUAD

SQUAD SQUAD

SQUADSQUAD

Autonomy

Feedback

-> Alignment

We’ll get to it. For now it’s magic.

TAKE-AWAY #1

Autonomy & Alignment Interact

A model for talking about failure

Plan Action

Plan Action Outcome

Plan Action Outcome

Knowledge Gap

Alignment Gap Effects Gap

Intent Hypothesis Feedback

Knowledge Gap


Most people focus mostly on this thing


Knowledge Gap


Spotify Apps, ca 2011

Plan Action Outcome

Platforms always win. App stores are disproportionately shifting innovation to Google and Apple. If you give developers API’s, they will come.

Spotify needs to become the platform for music. We also need to become faster at shipping our internal software. By mimicking an Operating System and using web tech to power apps, we can hit two flies with one rock.

We need to rewrite our desktop client to support web apps, and use this to power an app store.

People will use apps to listen to music and discover new stuff. Developers will innovate and we’ll benefit.

STRATEGY

PLAN

OUTCOME

ACTION

App Platform

2011

DATES ARE MOSTLY ILLUSTRATIVE. VERY LIKELY THEY ARE SOMEWHAT OFF.

App Platform

2011

Started building team


App Platform

2011

Started building team Shipped the platform


Many apps on launch

App Platform

2011



Many apps on launch

App Platform

2011 2012



Many apps on launch

App Platform

2011 2012

Started building team Shipped the platform100’s of apps shipped


Many apps on launch

App Platform

2011 2012


Specialized team tohelp apps launchquicker


Many apps on launch

App Platform

2011 2012



Still 100’s of apps shipped


Many apps on launch

2013

App Platform

2011 2012





Many apps on launch

2013

App Platform

2011 2012




Sigh. Still 100’s of apps shipped


Many apps on launch

2013

App Platform

2011 2012




Mobile turns out to be very hard



Many apps on launch

2013

App Platform

2011 2012





Started consider options



Many apps on launch

2013

App Platform

2011 2012







Decisions to shut it down.


Many apps on launch

2013

App Platform

2011 2012








Start retraining team


Many apps on launch

2013 2014

App Platform

2011 2012








Start retraining team


Many apps on launch

2013 2014

App Platform

2011 2012








We tell developersStart retraining team


Many apps on launch

2013 2014

App Platform

2011 2012










Implement it all

Many apps on launch

2013 2014

App Platform

2011 2012









All of team retrained


Implement it all

Many apps on launch

2013 2014

App Platform

2011 2012 2015











Implement it all

Many apps on launch

2013 2014

App Platform

2011 2012 2015








We tell developers Apps Platform RIPStart retraining team



Implement it all

Plan Action Outcome

Plan Action Outcome

We shipped the product on time. Hundreds of apps launched on the

platform.

However, over time, interest started to wane. I believe the initial inability to monetise on the platform, plus the

comparatively few users (~30m MAU at peak) lead to interest petering out.

As the shift to mobile was in full swing, reproducing the platform on mobile

turned out to be very hard.

Plan Action Outcome

Knowledge Gap


Special purpose app stores have never succeeded at the scale we envisioned (outside of games).

Running arbitrary apps inside an app is much harder on mobile than desktop.

Hire for generalists, even with in specialised roles.

The API’s and incentives put in place did not lead to long term engagement from developers with the platform.

What to do with those learnings?

Improve our batting average

What does innovation look like?

Innovation

Innovation

1. The action or process of innovating

Innovation

1. The action or process of innovating

2. A new method, idea, product, etc.

Innovation

It’s also what most of us here do, in pursuit of making our

users lives better and building better product.

The process of innovation

Here’s the real maxima

You’re here

The effects of innovation

“App stores disproportionately shift innovation to Google & Apple”- Me, just a few slides ago

So can we learn anything about innovation in the app store?

Assume: Successful innovation will eventually generate revenue.

On average, more money means you’ve innovated better.

So how does the app store distribute revenue, financially?

http://dazeend.org/2015/01/the-shape-of-the-app-store/

That puts 99.93% of apps in the “long tail” of the App Store.

The “head” of the App Store, those 870 top grossing apps that

make up 0.07% of the App Store population, collect over 40%

of the App Store revenue.

http://dazeend.org/2015/01/the-shape-of-the-app-store/

YEEEEEAAAHHHHHH!

You’re not creating something from nothing, you have a constraining context. You have strategic intent and you can

propagate it more effectively.

Here’s the real maxima

You’re here

WE THINK THIS IS THE WAY

WELL WE HAVE A VAGUE IDEA

= STRATEGIC INTENT

Next Thing

App Platform

Next Next Thing

Plan Action Outcome

Plan Action Outcome

= Strategic Intent

Plan Action Outcome

Propagate intent

= Strategic Intent

Plan Action Outcome

Propagate intent

= Strategic Intent

Answering this is figuring out “Where do we compete?”

Plan Action Outcome

Propagate intent

= Strategic Intent Platforms drives down time, experimentation culture drives down scope

Minimize inventory

Measure outcomes

Answering this is figuring out “Where do we compete?”

Plan Action Outcome


Measure like a mad man. Rinse and repeat.

http://www.slideshare.net/MrChrisJohnson/from-idea-to-execution-spotifys-discover-weekly

http://www.slideshare.net/MrChrisJohnson/from-idea-to-execution-spotifys-discover-weekly

When Spotify first debuted its Discover Weekly personalized playlist in July, it felt like a hit. Well, now there are some

numbers to back up the hype: In its first five months, Discover Weekly resulted in 1.7 billion streams.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3054176/elasticity/why-spotifys-discover-weekly-playlists-are-such-a-hit

http://www.fastcompany.com/3054176/elasticity/why-spotifys-discover-weekly-playlists-are-such-a-hit

TAKE-AWAY #2

Iterate with Purpose To Beat Darwin

The Shift to Mobile (2011 onwards)

from: CTO

to: technology

received: Thu, 28 Feb 2013

subject: How do we become a mobile company?

This is the million dollar question... We all know that we must become a mobile company to win, but how do we make it happen? A group of 25 people have spent the last 2 months on this topic. The group includes engineers, PO's & designers from all levels of the company and we also reached out to several external companies for advice.

There are still many unanswered questions, we will continue to attack questions one after another. But the fundamentals are now widely agreed.

Please read the attached to see what we came up with. This will be presented verbally at an all hands soon, but if you can't wait until then please read this doc. You can direct any questions to your senior manager, myself or any mobile developer.

2010 - 2011

Mary Meeker, 2010 + 2011http://www.kpcb.com/blog/2011-internet-trends

http://www.kpcb.com/blog/2011-internet-trends

Mobile phones overtook desktops. Really really quickly.

Shift to Mobile


Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011


Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

Meeker Decks


Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks


Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks

Apps Platform Strategy


Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks


Hiring frenzy for web


Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks



Apps shipping oniOS and Android, very seldomly andfrom two teams


Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks





Work on mobile strategy

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks




Demo latest flagship on web



2013

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks







2013

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks






Work on mobile strategyMobile strategy launched“One app on both platforms”

2013

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks






First Interim Release Manager

> 1 team contributes


2013

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks








Start hiring craze


2013

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks








Start trying to ship every three weeks

Start hiring craze


2013

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks









Start hiring craze


Start trying toretrain devs

Mobile strategy launched“One app on both platforms”

2013

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks









Start hiring craze


iOS 7 announced: Abandon web on mobile



2013

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks









Start hiring craze


Multiple squads and chapters contributing.




2013

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks





Lack of mobile is blocking most teams.





Start hiring craze






2013

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks






Ship our mobile first product





Start hiring craze






2013 2014

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks











Start hiring craze






Dedicated release / arch teams

2013 2014

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks











Start hiring craze







2013 2014

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks











Start hiring craze






Hiring starts working


2013 2014

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012

Meeker Decks











Start hiring craze



Mobile chapters most places,guilds are effective.






2013 2014

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012 2015

Meeker Decks











Start hiring craze









2013 2014

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012 2015

Meeker Decks











Start hiring craze


Multiple squads and chapters contributing. ~April 2014

Several thousands

Single hundreds

JAN 2011 JUN 2016






Monthly active developers


2013 2014

Shift to Mobile

2010 /

2011

2012 2015

Meeker Decks











Start hiring craze


Multiple squads and chapters contributing. ~April 2014

Several thousands

Single hundreds

JAN 2011 JUN 2016






2011-2014

Platformisation

Repo

Android App

Squad

Users

Squad Squad Squad Squad

Single Team Writes & Ships Whole App

1-10 developers in one app

50-500 commits per month

Other squads provide backends for UI team to work withNice segregated backend architecture to play with

Repo

Android App

Squad

Users

Squad

Squad

Squad

Squad

All Teams Contribute To The One App

One Team Releases

10-100 developers in one app

1000’s-10 000’s commits / month

Squad

Squad

Knowing this would be painful, we should have started way earlier.

Squad

Users

Squad

Squad

SquadSquad

Squad

Squad

Squad

Squad

Squad

SquadUsers

Squad

Squad

Squad

Who owns the user experience Who owns the quality of that experience? Who owns holistic quality metrics?

Are teams set up with the proper skill to own this? If not, how will they get there?

Will this lead to a better product for the user in the end? How do you know that?

Who owns the user experience Who owns the quality of that experience? Who owns holistic quality metrics?

Are teams set up with the proper skill to own this? If not, how will they get there?

Will this lead to a better product for the user in the end? How do you know that?

Plan

Action

Outcome

Plan Action Outcome

Knowledge Gap


Assess technical trends with a long view and bet earlier on emerging platforms.

Web and mobile are distinct skills. Mobile engineers are highly sought after and competitive.

Leverage guilds and RFPs to drive high quality decision making in a Spotify way.

Platformisation is an extremely heavy-weight maneavuer.

Hiring and onboarding tons of mobile engineers doesn’t immediately make you quick. You need to platformise.

Now that we have this, how do we maximise it’s advantage?

Culture & Process

Three rituals and tools we use

1. DIBBs Data Insights Beliefs Bets

Plan Outcome

Things we believe about the world and why we believe them.

BetWHY

BetWHY

Belief

BetWHY

BeliefWHY

BetWHY

BeliefWHY

Insight

BetWHY

BeliefWHY

InsightWHY

BetWHY

BeliefWHY

InsightWHY

Data

Applied for both strategy and culture.

DIBBsData Insight Belief Bet

http://blog.crisp.se/2016/06/08/henrikkniberg/spotify-rhythm

Desktop

Mobile

USAGE TRENDS

Desktop

Mobile

FRONT END STAFFING

Mobile is overtaking desktop as primary music consumption device, and it’s happening quickly.

We’re staffed as a desktop first company.

The technology stacks between desktop and mobile are wildly different.

The future is mobile, and the company that wins music will be a company that wins mobile.

Hire mobile developers

Retrain desktop developers

Go from 1 team doing mobile for all features, to mobile being a concern of every team.

STRATEGY

http://blog.crisp.se/2016/06/08/henrikkniberg/spotify-rhythm


CULTURE


All modern engineering processes are dialects of agile/lean which relies on short iterations with constant learning.

Bugs are more expensive to fix the later they are found.

We have had many great ideas but many of our ideas don’t work in practice.

.

.

.

CULTURE


We can only learn when the code is in front of a consumer. Therefore the more often we show code to users/customers the faster we will learn.

Code is only worth something when used by consumers, hence we must ship often to gain value.




.

.

.

CULTURE




Speed of iteration beats quality of iteration.




.

.

.

CULTURE




Speed of iteration beats quality of iteration.

Our organisation, culture, architecture and process is optimised for learning and execution speed as opposed to say developer resource utilisation or cost per built feature.

.

.

.

.




.

.

.

CULTURE

Giving away all the worlds music for free can bring the music

industry back to health.

2. Innovation Propagation / Bets Board

Action

The Company Bets Kanban

The main priorities of the company

Evaluated and re-prioritised quarterly

Strictly stack ranked

Each bet has an assigned RM

Open to the entire company and debated and questioned endlessly

Expresses intent

NOW NEXT

3. Innovation Execution / Taps

Action

A meeting every 6 weeks of everyone involved in an area of work.

Two hours. Free for all questioning and asking for help.

By the team, for the team.

Taps

Tap Tap

Strategy

Tap Tap

S S S S S S S S S

Taps create peer accountability, natural pressure to ship and transparency by default.

Putting those who do closest to the effects of doing

TAKE-AWAY #3

Over-reacting beats under-reacting

What happened after Apps Platform?

How long did it take to build?

How long did it take to build?

4 MONTHS. FROM IDEA TO MVP IN HAND.

A new strategic intent

“Ubiquity”

Next Thing

Apps Platform

Next Next Thing

No Apps Platform, No PlayStation

Minimum Viable

Tons and tons and tons of data - Right MVP

1. PlayStation

2. Less important

Number 1 priority - Block and tackle

Plan Action Outcome

Plan Action Outcome

Ubiquity

Plan Action Outcome

Number 1 Priority

Technical Capability

Ubiquity

Plan Action Outcome

Number 1 Priority

Technical Capability Right MVP

Ubiquity

Summing Up

What did we cover?

A whole mess of stuff, really.

Autonomy & Alignment InteractEmpower peer-based teams

Make sure failure travels fastest Vocabulary shapes culture

Iterate with Purpose To Beat DarwinMake failure expected and retrospected

Copy with intention Be Bayes not Darwin

Over-Reacting Beats Under-ReactingWhen in doubt, Ship It

Put doers closest to value delivery Hire for capability to change

#sparkconf #sparklondon @marcusf

to speed through failure

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