Slides of the keynote of Joost de Schepper at #CH2017, Texel, the Netherlands - https://conversionhotel.com

1. Spotify @Conversion Hotel

3. Is it relevance, because we are both work with
Conversion Optimization?
So why did Ton ask me?
Or is it because we are both Dutch?

4. He thinks Spotify is cool
But Are we still cool……?

5. We do have gaming rooms

6. Slack channel for celebrity
creeping in the office

7. 10 years anniversary

8. We are getting older but

9. But there also some signs
that we are not cool anymoreToo big to be a fun startup? Are we a frustrating big company these
days?

10. Quiz

11. Don’t let these Gift cards
show up here:

12. Or worse…..

13. And even worse…...

14. In how many countries
can you get Spotify?

15. How many employees
do we have?

16. Our new office location in NY

17. Legal…...

18. Ways of
Working @
Spotify

19. The problem with 2000 engineers

20. Squads=cross functional group
Squads are
responsible
for their own
testing

21. Tribes & Guilds

22. Tribe 1
Revenue Mission
R&D Missions, Alliances & Tribes
Data Mission
Growth
Opportunities
Mission
Consumer
Experience Mission
User Engagement
Mission
Creator Mission
Tribe 2
Tribe 3
Tribe 4
Technology Platform Mission
Tribe 1
Tribe 3Tribe 2
Tribe 2
Tribe 1
Developer Platform
Enterprise
Alliance
MissionTribe
Tribe 1
Tribe 1
Tribe 2
Tribe 1
Tribe 4
Tribe 3
Tribe 2
Design & Product Insights Mission
Product area 1
Product
Area
Product area 2
Product area 3
Product area 4
Product area 1
Product area 1
Product area 2
Product area 3
Product area 4
Tribe 1
Product area 1
Product area 2
Legend

23. How we align

24. Mission: everybody in the world should enjoy music at any time
Beliefs: Integrate with everybody will help the world become a better place
North star: Integrate with the top 10 apps in the world
Objective: Integrate with UBER
Bet: Integrate with UBER in London
An example

25. Spotify rhythm in practise

26. Alignment versus Autonomy

27. We actively promote people
to try things

28. The Fail Wall

29. Alignment versus Autonomy

31. R&D Organizational-Design Principles
Missions
R&D consists of 8 Missions that encompass all the work going on within the department. A Mission can
be a Tribe, an Alliance or many Alliances, depending on the size of the Mission.
Tribes
A Tribe is the most central organisation unit (together with a squad). Therefore we want to continue to
enforce a strict set of rules around Tribes. The most important rules are:
● The size of a tribe is 30 - 150 people
● The tribe is lead by an accountable leadership team (accountabilities as defined by the one Team,
One R&D doc). Most tribes have the T/P/D trio leadership but some infrastructure tribes might
have just T/P or just T.
● Tribe leaders are benchmarked against a standard R&D-bar and new candidates are interviewed
by people outside the mission to ensure benchmark. All tribe lead appointments must be
approved by the relevant Mission Lead.
● A tribe has a specific dedicated mission that unites all members
● A tribe has its constituents well articulated and we shall strive to ensure one constituent per tribe
● Any change to the tribe structure needs to be approved by Chief R&D Officer (i.e. creation of new
tribes, killing of tribes, merging/splitting of tribes or larger changes in missions scope)
Continues on next slide ->

32. R&D Organizational-Design Principles cont.
Alliances
We use this name for the highest order org-units only. A Mission becomes an Alliance when it expands to more than one Tribe. Chief
R&D Officer, together with the Mission Lead, decides when to create a new Alliance.
Smaller groups inside tribes
Some larger tribes decide to create units/groups inside the tribe. Some call it product areas or tribelets. We want to allow for a larger
degree of flexibility within the tribe and such solutions require only approval from relevant Mission Lead. Naming is also flexible.
What is a guild?
● A guild is a community of interest around a particular skillset, interest, or practice
● A guild is long term, but not necessarily permanent
● A guild may have rotating or shifting membership
● A guild may be sponsored, or purely organic
● A guild has a coordinator, which may be a rotating or permanent role
● A guild often uses slack, email, and meetings to stay connected in ways that make sense for their members

33. R&D Organizational-Design Principles cont.
What
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a way for teams to state what they're working towards (the
objectives) and define a set of measurable results (the key results) indicating progress towards those
objectives. Spotify R&D only mandates OKRs on the Tribe level. Mission level objectives are defined
by the Mission Leads and serves as an input to Tribe level OKRs, but the Mission level objectives are
not accompanied by any key results.
Why
OKRs helps R&D create alignment and visibility of work across Tribes.

34. We’re delivering We’re innovating We’re organising
84% success rate on Q4 OKR’s and 75%
success rate on Q1 OKR’s at 74% of quarter.
Four company bets delivered on time since last
time.
Closed off XXX bet on track to hitting all revised
KPI’s.
XXXX MAU added in 2016, growing faster than
XXXXX at large.
High quality users: XXX more listening if you’re
a multi-client listener
A new squad focusing onXXX
XXX filters, XXX including offline soon in market.
explorations with XXXX ongoing.
New prototyping team to structure early funnel
innovation.
148 person strong team, with 32 hires in Q4+Q1
so far.
Four distinct focuses: Home CE, Car &
Wearables, Clients and App Integrations.
New Product Area set up will allow us to build
out new tribes quickly as needed by growth.
Dedicated and strong insights team.
Getting a deep bench of senior leaders and
potential future tribe leads.

35. Team
Conversion
Optimization
@Spotify

36. Tribe 1
Revenue Mission
R&D Missions, Alliances & Tribes
Data Mission
Growth
Opportunities
Mission
Consumer
Experience Mission
User Engagement
Mission
Creator Mission
Tribe 2
Tribe 3
Tribe 4
Technology Platform Mission
Tribe 1
Tribe 3Tribe 2
Tribe 2
Tribe 1
Developer Platform
Enterprise
Alliance
MissionTribe
Tribe 1
Tribe 1
Tribe 2
Tribe 1
Tribe 4
Tribe 3
Tribe 2
Design & Product Insights Mission
Product area 1
Product
Area
Product area 2
Product area 3
Product area 4
Product area 1
Product area 1
Product area 2
Product area 3
Product area 4
Tribe 1
Product area 1
Product area 2
Legend

37. Tribe 1
Revenue
Tribe 2
Tribe 3
Tribe 4
Product area 1
Product area 2
Product area 3
Product area 4
Revenue has a partner...
Business
Team
Conversion

38. Business vs R&D

39. B
R
&
D

40. Not enough testing

41. The challenge for us
R&D:
You are
stepping on
our domain
Business:
Is “Joost” the
name of a
squad in R&D?

42. The outcome - fairly well
established
● Being completely transparent
● Code reviews by R&D for our tests
● Being fairly well structured
● Delivering results
● Improved the data quality

43. Test initiators
Regional Conversion
LATAM
Japan
Europe
APEC
North America
Product strategy
Student
Family
Bundling
R&D
Payments
Campaign pages
Design
Team
Conversion
30% 15%
15%
40%

44. Our domain is the web

45. A very tricky page

46. 3 test
examples

47. See more offers

48. Choice paralysis & Price anchoring

49. Payment method order (1/2)
+/-0%

50. Payment method order (2/2)
+38%

51. The results

52. Redeem Giftcard Flow - control

53. Variation

54. Other things we do

55. Joost @ spotify.com
https://nl.linkedin.com/in/joostdeschepper
Thanks!

56. Questions?

57. We are hiring
Team
Conversion