My presentation to the UK Department of Media, Culture and Sport. Autonomy is a strong tool to unlock innovation in your organization. The constant question is how to handle accountability in autonomous organizations. In this talk, I look at the benefits of an organization with autonomous teams and discuss ways of ensuring accountability and governance in those organizations.

1. Kevin Goldsmith
Vice-President of Engineering, Consumer
Spotify
@KevinGoldsmith
Innovation,
Autonomy &
Accountability
Kevin Goldsmith
Vice-President of Engineering, Consumer
Spotify
@KevinGoldsmith

2. Why
Autonomy?

3. AUTONOMOUS
adjective
au·ton·o·mous - ȯ-ˈtä-nə-məs
(of a country or region) having the freedom to govern itself or control its own affairs.
"the federation included sixteen autonomous republics"
having the freedom to act independently.
"school governors are legally autonomous"
synonyms: self-governing, independent, sovereign, free, self-ruling, self-determining, autarchic; self-sufficient
"an autonomous republic"

4. The Traditional
Organization

5. VP
client
director
client
manager
client
manager
client
manager
client
manager
server
director
core
manager
infra
director
server
manager
server
manager

6. VP
client
director
client
manager
client
manager
client
manager
client
manager
server
director
core
manager
infra
director
server
manager
server
manager
Centralized decision making
ClearAccountability
Simple Budgetting
Aligned priorities

7. VP
client
director
client
manager
client
manager
client
manager
client
manager
server
director
core
manager
infra
director
server
manager
server
manager
Decision-making bottlenecks
Collaboration bottlenecks
Punishes risk-taking
Inflexible

8. The Autonomous
Organization

9. Team A Team B Team DTeam C Team F Team GTeam E
Lead
Local decision making
Risk-taking rewarded (Fail Safe)
Nimble /Adaptable
No speed limits

10. Team A Team B Team DTeam C Team F Team GTeam E
Lead
Alignment is more challenging
Accountability isn’t automatic
More effort to monitor
Budgetting is complex

11. Team A Team B Team DTeam C Team F Team GTeam E
Lead

12. Alliance

15. Alliance

18. Leadershipin
anautonomous
organization

19. How do you lead a team
that makes it’s own
decisions?

20. U.S. Navy photo byTom WatanabeU.S. Navy photo byTom Watanabe

21. U.S.Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jennifer Bunn

23. Accountability

24. Ownership brings
accountability

25. Leadership sets the mission
The team owns the mission

26. Roles on the team are defined
Who should do what is always clear. People know what
their primary job is.
This doesn’t mean that roles cannot shift, if needed.

27. Success criteria is agreed on
Leadership and the team define the criteria which defines
success against the mission.This can change, but should
not change often.

28. The realm of opinion
is a dangerous place.

29. “I never guess. It is a capital mistake to
theorize before one has data. Insensibly
one begins to twist facts to suit theories,
instead of theories to suit facts.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

30. Inpracticeat
Spotify

31. DATA
VISION
EXPERIMENTSLEARNING
PRODUCT
INFORMS
GUIDES
GENERATES
DRIVES
PROVIDES

34. Questions
twitter: @kevingoldsmith