Functional vs cross-functional teams

Everyone (almost) has seen the above diagram. Its the infamous Spotify model. It shows how can you organize tech teams, into cross-functional squads.

So, with this structure, you minimize the dependencies and you increase the speed. At least the perceived speed. This is the proper description.

Why you need to do this? It is simple, you need to do it, to realize the business streams, into the organizational structure, because with this way, you minimize also communication within the organization.

So, each PO (Product Owner) prioritizes the work of a squad, which is responsible of delivering a feature end-to-end. Of course a product is rather big, so you have lots of squads, which consist a tribe.

In addition, you have chapters, which are virtual teams that working on the same craft (aka job family eg. iOS engineers) and guilds, which are cross-tribe chapters.

I will not comment on the fact that the Spotify model, is not used by the Spotify as it is rumoured, but try to understand if this works in practice.

A more traditional structure

As I stated in Lean and Mean, I really want to be the exception on the conway law. I really like, small teams with specialized engineers that know the system they are working on.