What is a Tribe from the Spotify Model?
A Tribe in the Spotify Model is an incubator for mini-startups. In other words, a group of Agile Squads working on the same business area. In addition, the Tribe perimeter is defined to enforce autonomy and to limit dependencies with other Tribes.
What are the characteristics of a Tribe?
- Firstly, made of Squads as far as possible. Furthermore, in some specific cases like for legacy applications a team may organize as a Component Team.
- Secondly, does not overpass the Dunbar’s number (150 people) to support social relationship.
- Thirdly, is worldwide with proper interaction mechanisms between each location. The Squads remain co-located. This is a specification of this Return of Experience due to the size and the global configuration of the organization. But it is not specified in the Spotify Model.
The Tribe inherits the Squad’s characteristics:
- Long-lived (> min 24-36 months) to reach optimal velocity
- Covering both development and production: “You built it, you run it”
What is the role of the Tribe Manager ?
- Is the Leader of the Tribe and the direct Manager of the Chapter Managers that will develop in the Chapter post.
- His/her mission is to enforce a proper incubator the Squads for instance with collocation and a quality work environment supporting collaboration.
- He/she organize Tribe sharing events about delivery and best practices in order to support the belonging to the big family that is the Tribe.
- It is a full time role.
What’s next? Learn more about Agile at Scale
Check my other posts about Agile at Scale:
- Review my posts on Agile at Scale foundations:
- What are
- What are the team topologies?
- How to synchronize Agile Squads in Agile at Scale when there are dependencies?
- Check another of my posts introducing Agile at Scale that leverages the book “Doing Agile Right”.
- Review my post on the Agile best practices from the GAO the Government Accountability Office from the USA.
- Read my posts on advanced topics around Agile at Scale:
- What are Leagues in Agile at Scale?
- How to design Agile Squads so they are aligned on the Value Chains.
- Why going for horizontal management? What does it mean and what is the value?
- How roles are reallocated with Agile at Scale?
- Check my posts on project management in Agile at Scale
- What is the impact of Agile on Project Management?
- How does Project Portfolio Management change with Agile at Scale?
- Then, how does Cost of Delay Divided by Duration (CD3) contribute to Agile at Scale?
- How does Beyond Budgeting support Agile at Scale?
- Can an Agile Project be fixed price?
- How to manage Release Management in Agile?
- Review my posts on how to forge a good strategy:
- What are competition and competitive advantage?
- What is a good strategy?