Presentation for AgileCamp NY Metro 2016

1. Enabling Autonomy at
Spotify
Jason Yip
Agile Coach, Monetization Tribe, Spotify NYC
jyip@spotify.com
@jchyip
https://jchyip.blogspot.com
https://medium.com/@jchyip

2. What do you mean
when you say
“autonomy”?

3. Autonomy means the
freedom to do what you
feel like.

4. Autonomy means the
freedom to do what you
feel like.
Psychologically shallow

5. Autonomy means the
freedom to do what you
feel like.Devoid of meaning andshared identity
Psychologically shallow

6. Autonomy means the
freedom to do what you
feel like.Devoid of meaning andshared identity Probably leads to
depression
Psychologically shallow

7. Autonomy means feeling
free to act, with all your
capabilities, to
contribute toward a
collective outcome.

8. Autonomy means feeling
free to act, with all your
capabilities, to
contribute toward a
collective outcome.
Psychologically strong

9. Autonomy means feeling
free to act, with all your
capabilities, to
contribute toward a
collective outcome.Contributes to a sense of
capability and self-efficacy
Psychologically strong

10. Okay, I accept your
definition of autonomy.
How might I support it?

11. http://blog.crisp.se/2016/08/23/henrikkniberg/alignment-at-scale-agile-africa-keynote

12. What do you mean
when you say
“alignment”?

13. Alignment = Intent + rationale +
constraints
Intent: What
Rationale: Why
Constraints: Any restrictions on How

14. Alignment = Intent + rationale +
constraints
Intent: We need to cross the river
Rationale: There is more food on the other
side
Constraints: Please don’t kill any beavers

15. What does Spotify do to
enable alignment?

16. Company Beliefs
Our World
Our Platform
Our Company
Our Teams
Top-level rationale

17. North Star + 2 Year Goals
Our World
Our Platform
Our Company
Our Teams
Top-level intent

18. Company Bets (rank, WIP limit)
Sponsor, Road Manager,
Key Stakeholders, Summary,
DIBB (Data Insights, Beliefs,
Bets), Impact, Investment,
Staffing, Dependencies
Intent, rationale, constraints

19. Tribe Bets
Varies
Intent, rationale, constraints

20. Squad Missions and Roadmaps
Varies
Intent, rationale, constraints

21. TPD leadership
Tribe TPD leads
Company Beliefs
North Star / 2 Year
Goals
Company Bets

22. TPD leadership
Tribe TPD leads
Company Beliefs
North Star / 2 Year
Goals
Company Bets
Strategy Days
TPD Alignment
Taps
Other Tribe / Squad
sessions vary

23. So that’s all I need to
enable autonomy?

24. Well, no.

25. Alignment is not
enough to enable
autonomy.

26. http://www.davidmarquet.com/our-story/

27. Autonomy is enabled by
Alignment AND
Competence

28. What do you mean
when you say
“competence”?

29. Essentially, I trust that
1. You will decide things in a similar way to
how I would
2. You have similar or better skill to do the
work

30. Competence means
shared work beliefs
AND technical
excellence

31. What does Spotify do to
enable competence?

32. Engineering Core Beliefs
‣ Speed of learning and execution lead us to create a best in
class product
‣ The fewer technologies we are world class on, the faster we get
‣ Shorter iterations yield faster learning, quicker value and higher
quality
‣ Small empowered cross-functional teams is the foundation of
fast paced product development and innovation
‣ Strong teams always beat rock stars
‣ Your ability to learn and adapt is more important than your
knowledge, merit and experience

34. “Get off to a flying start with backend development by
following our step-by-step Golden Path tutorials:
they'll show you how to develop, build, provision, deploy,
test, and monitor a backend service in our production
environment. These tutorials are designed to get new
employees, boot camp squads – indeed anyone who is new
to backend development at Spotify – to get up to speed,
fast!”

36. “The Chapter Lead is the line
manager for his or her chapter
members, with all the traditional
responsibilities such as
developing people, setting
salaries, etc”

37. Not just
TPD

38. ‣ #tech-excellence
‣ #fearless-development
Slack channels and unconferences

39. So Spotify is really
good at enabling
autonomy?

40. Autonomy is a strong
belief at Spotify… but...

41. Let’s say it’s a work in
progress
Zombie projects Looser than I’d like on
technical habits
Not a strong tradition of
technically-orientedcoaches
Experience skews
toward the young side
TPD / Business gap
Ability to absorb
rapid growth rate

42. So, that’s all I need to
enable autonomy?

43. First, don’t just copy.

44. Think for yourself.

45. We are after all talking
about enabling
autonomy.

46. Principles are probably
generalisable.

47. Autonomy means feeling
free to act, with all your
capabilities, to
contribute toward a
collective outcome.

48. Autonomy is enabled by
Alignment AND
Competence

49. Alignment = Intent + rationale +
boundaries
Intent: What
Rationale: Why
Boundaries: Any restrictions on How

50. Competence means
shared work beliefs
AND technical
excellence

51. Beyond principles,
you’ll need to
experiment with the
specific mechanisms.

52. Who are you again?

53. Who was that guy?
‣ Jason Yip
‣ Agile Coach at Spotify since Feb 2015
‣ Previously Principal Consultant at
ThoughtWorks (started in February 2001)
‣ First encountered Extreme Programming in
1998

54. My question to the
audience:
What do you do to
enable autonomy?