Spotify is a digital music service that gives you access to millions of songs. Spotify Web Player may not be perfect, as the above guide shows, but with a few tweaks and a few creases ironed out, it does a pretty good job as a stand-in for the full-fledged app. Its redesign earlier in the year has made it resemble the Spotify app much more, too, which is a welcome change. Not available on 2017 and 2018 STARLINK 6.5-inch Multimedia systems. Availability of each application depends on the model year of your vehicle and region. NOTE: To access STARLINK Safety and Security Remote Services, you must install the MySubaru Mobile App. Safety and Security services require separate subscription.
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- Is Spotify Not Working
Spotify doesn’t use “the Spotify model”
and neither should you.
and neither should you.
By Jeremiah Lee
Sunday, April 19, 2020 • Listen • Watch • En français • 日本語で • Português (Brasil)
Of all the allures of startup culture, few are more desireable than the speed and nimbleness of a small team. Maintaining that feeling as a company grows is a challenge. In 2012, Spotify shared its way of working and suggested it had figured it out.1
I was excited to see the Spotify model in action when I interviewed for a product management role at its Stockholm headquarters in 2017. However, the recruiter surprised me before the first interview. She cautioned me to not expect Spotify to be an Agile utopia.
I joined the company after it had tripled in size to 3,000 people over 18 months. I learned the famed squad model was only ever aspirational and never fully implemented. I witnessed organizational chaos as the company’s leaders incrementally transitioned to more traditional management structures.
When I asked my coworkers why the content was not removed or updated to reflect reality, I never got a good answer. Many people ironically thought the posts were great for recruiting. I no longer work at Spotify, so I am sharing my experience to set the record straight. The Spotify squad model failed Spotify and it will fail your company too.
But you don’t have to take my word for it.
The co-author of the Spotify model2 and multiple agile coaches who worked at Spotify have been telling people to not copy it for years. Unfortunately, truth doesn’t spread as quickly or as widely as an idea people want to believe in.
“Even at the time we wrote it, we weren’t doing it. It was part ambition, part approximation. People have really struggled to copy something that didn’t really exist.”
—Joakim Sundén, agile coach at Spotify 2011–20174
“It worries me when people look at what we do and think it’s a framework they can just copy and implement. … We are really trying hard now to emphasize we have problems as well. It’s not all ‘shiny and everything works well and all our squads are super amazing’.”
—Anders Ivarsson, co-author of the Spotify whitepaper3
Recap
You can read and watch the original content in less than 30 minutes or skip to the next section if you are familiar. Here is a brief summary.
Spotify had teams it called squads because it sounded cooler (not joking). A group of teams were organized into a department called a tribe. Each team was intended to be an autonomous mini-startup, with a product manager acting as mini-CEO for a feature area. The teams had designers and software engineers with a range of specializations. The intent was that a team should have every skill necessary without needing to rely on another team for success.
Product managers had a traditional management structure. A product manager for a team reported to their department’s product director (“tribe lead”). Same for designers. Software engineers, however, were managed outside of the team structure.
“Chapter leads” managed software engineers specializing in a specific type of software development across the department. For example, all of the software engineers working on backend APIs across all the teams within the department would have one manager and all of the Android mobile engineers in the department would have a different manager. The intent was to allow engineers to be moved between teams within the department to best meet business requirements without them having to change managers.
Why it didn’t work
Matrix management solved the wrong problem
The “full stack” agile team worked well, but the matrix management of software engineers introduced more problems than it solved.
- Teams at Spotify were rather long-lived. The benefit of not having to change manager when moving to another team was limited.
- Engineering managers in this model had little responsibility beyond the career development of the people they managed. Even then, their ability to help with interpersonal people skills development was limited. An engineering manager would not manage enough of the other people on the team or be involved enough in the daily context to independently assess conflict within the team.
- Without a single engineering manager responsible for the engineers on a team, the product manager lacked an equivalent peer—the mini-CTO to their mini-CEO role. There was no single person accountable for the engineering team’s delivery or who could negotiate prioritization of work at an equivalent level of responsibility.When disagreements within the engineering team arose, the product manager needed to negotiate with all of the engineers on the team. If the engineers could not reach a consensus, the product manager needed to escalate to as many engineering managers as there were engineering specializations within the team. A team with backend, Web app, and mobile app engineers would have at least 3 engineering managers who might need to get involved. If those engineering managers could not reach a consensus, a single team’s issue would have to escalate to the department’s engineering director.
“Chapter leads are servant-leaders who help you grow as an individual. They don’t really work with any team. They have direct reports on all the teams. They don’t have really any accountability for the delivery. They aren’t taking that responsibility. It’s easy to see the product owner as the manager for the team.”
—Joakim Sundén, agile coach at Spotify4
Learn from Spotify’s mistakes:
- A product—design—engineering team typically contains more engineers than designers or product managers. Having a single engineering manager for the engineers on the team creates an accountable escalation path for conflict within the team.
- Product managers should have an equivalent peer for engineering. Product managers should be accountable for the prioritization of work. Engineering managers should be accountable for the engineers’ execution, which includes being able to negotiate speed and quality tradeoffs with the product manager.
Spotify fixated on team autonomy
When a company is small, teams have to do a wide range of work to deliver and have to shift initiatives frequently. As a company grows from startup to scale-up, duplicated functions across teams move to new teams dedicated to increasing organization efficiency by reducing duplication. With more teams, the need for a team to shift initiative decreases in frequency. Both of these changes allow for teams to think more deeply and long term about the problems they are scoped to solve. Faster iteration, however, is not guaranteed. Every responsibility a team cedes to increase its focus becomes a new cross-team dependency.
Spotify did not define a common process for cross-team collaboration. Allowing every team to have a unique way of working meant each team needed a unique way of engagement when collaborating. Overall organization productivity suffered.
The Spotify model was documented when Spotify was a much smaller company. It was supposed to be a multiple part series, according to Anders Ivarsson. Autonomy made the first cut, but the parts on alignment and accountability were never completed.
Learn from Spotify’s mistakes:
- Autonomy requires alignment. Company priorities must be defined by leadership. Autonomy does not mean teams get to do whatever they want.
- Processes for cross-team collaboration must be defined. Autonomy does not mean leaving teams to self-organize every problem.
- How success is measured must be defined by leadership so people can effectively negotiate cross-team dependency prioritization.
- Autonomy requires accountability. Product management is accountable for value. The team is accountable for delivering ‘done’ increments. Mature teams can justify their independence with their ability to articulate business value, risk, learning, and the next optimal move.6
“If I were to do one thing differently, I would say we should not be focusing so much on autonomy.
“Every time you have a new team, they have to reinvent the wheel in how they should be working. Maybe, just maybe, we should have a ‘minimum viable agility’. You start with that. You are free to opt out, but people shouldn’t have to opt-in all the time.
“At what point do you start inserting this process? Probably when it’s too late.”
—Joakim Sundén, agile coach at Spotify4
“Henrik Kniberg talked about how we're not that good at large initiatives and we’re still not that good at large initiatives.
“If you have inconsistent ways of working, it’s more difficult for people to move. If it’s more difficult for people to move, it’s more likely you have inconsistent ways of working. It will just reinforce until all of a sudden, you’re not really working for the same company anymore. You’re working for these kind of weird subcultures.”
—Jason Yip, agile coach at Spotify
2015–time of writing5
2015–time of writing5
Collaboration was an assumed competency
While Spotify gave teams control over their way of working, many people did not have a basic understanding of Agile practices. This resulted in teams iterating through process tweaks in blind hope of finding the combination that would help them improve their delivery. People lacked a common language to effectively discuss the process problems, the education to solve them, and the experience to evaluate performance. It was not really agile. It was just not-waterfall.
“Agile coaches” were internal consultants Spotify provided teams to teach and suggest process improvements. While well-intentioned, there were not enough coaches to help every team. A coach’s engagement with a team was rarely long enough to span a project’s completion to help a team evaluate performance. More so, they were not accountable for anything.
Spotify App Not Working 2017 Ford
“Control without competence is chaos.”
—L. David Marquet, Turn the Ship Around!
Learn from Spotify’s mistakes:
- Collaboration is a skill that requires knowledge and practice. Managers should not assume people have an existing comprehension of Agile practices.
- When a company becomes big enough, teams will need dedicated support to guide planning within the team and structure collaboration between teams. Program management can be accountable for the planning process. Dedicated program managers enable teams in a manner similar to how dedicated product managers and engineering managers do with their respective competencies.
Mythology is difficult to change
When Agile Scrum introduced new meanings to a bunch of words like burn-down and sprint, it did so because it introduced new concepts that needed names. Spotify introduced the vocabulary of missions, tribes, squads, guilds, and chapter leads for describing its way of working. It gave the illusion it had created something worthy of needing to learn unusual word choices. However, if we remove the unnecessary synonyms from the ideas, the Spotify model is revealed as a collection of cross-functional teams with too much autonomy and a poor management structure. Don’t fall for it. Had Spotify referred to these ideas by their original names, perhaps it could have evaluated them more fairly when they failed instead of having to confront changing its cultural identity simply to find internal processes that worked well.
Learn from Spotify’s mistakes:
- Most businesses can only sustain a few areas of innovation. Internal process rarely is a primary area of innovation that differentiates a company in the marketplace. Studying the past allows businesses to pick better areas for innovation.
- Optimize for understanding. Every new thing someone must learn in order to be productive in your organization should be evaluated on its value.
- Business units, departments, teams, and managers more effectively communicate organization structure roles and responsibilities than Spotify’s synonyms and are not attached to a way of working that failed their creator.
Do this instead
(Just kidding. There are no quick fixes.)
You might have discovered the Spotify model because you were trying to figure out how to structure your teams. Don’t stop here. Keep researching. Leaders of companies that have withstood longer tests of time have written far more than Spotify blogged. Humans have been trying to figure out how to work together for as long as there have been humans. The industrial age and the information age changed some of the constraints, but academics studying organization theories have found timeless truths about what humans need to be successful in a collective.
Turns out, Spotify in 2012 had not figured out how to maintain the speed and nimbleness of a small team in a large organization. The company evolved beyond its eponymous model and looked outside of itself to find better answers. You should too.
A few of my recommendations related to the topics covered by the Spotify way of working:
- More than 200 people in your product—engineering—design organization? The Scaled Agile Framework worked well for Fitbit when I worked there.
- Less than 200 people? Shape Up by Basecamp is how I intend to structure my next startup.
Notes & Citations
1: Scaling Agile @ Spotify whitepaper, Spotify Engineering Culture video
2: Anders Ivarsson and Henrik Kniberg authored the Scaling Agile @ Spotify whitepaper. Henrik clarified his creator status in 2015: “people sometimes seem to make the assumption that I invented the Spotify model. Well, I most certainly didn’t! I’m just the messenger. … The Spotify model is the result of a lot of people collaborating and experimenting over time, and many aspects of the model were invented without my involvement at all. I certainly wouldn’t want to take credit from the people involved.”
![Why is spotify not working Why is spotify not working](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ur45WdlnU-o/hqdefault.jpg)
3: Episode 112: Inside Spotify with Anders Ivarsson, The Agile Revolution, 2016
4: You can do better than the Spotify model by Joakim Sundén, 2017 video, slides
5: How things still don’t quite work at Spotify and how we’re trying to solve it by Jason Yip, 2017 video, slides
6: Balancing Autonomy with Accountability by Edwin Dando
Additional resources
If 2,200+ words of first-hand experiences from 4 Spotify employees were not enough, read how the Spotify model didn’t work for these people outside of Spotify.
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Cover illustration inspired by Bad Blood by Taylor Swift, who knows something about squad goals but not copyright. If you forgot 2015, here is an examination of the term squad goals.
Thank you to Roland Siebelink and Jason Harmon for reviewing drafts of this article.
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Designed using InVision Studio, Affinity Designer, and Apple Motion. Implemented with Tailwinds CSS, Eleventy, Microsoft VS Code. Typeset in Vision, the closest free option to Spotify’s Gotham variant I could find.
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© 2020 Jeremiah Lee. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
First published on October 2, 2017. Revised on June 1, 2018, upon announcement of the discontinuation of the Groove Music iOS and Android apps.
On October 2, 2017, we announced that we'd be partnering with Spotify to bring the world’s largest music streaming service to you. We know that access to the best streaming experience, the largest catalog of music, and a variety of subscriptions are top of your list.
Spotify App Not Working 2017 Calendar
On January 1, 2018, the Groove Music Pass streaming service was discontinued. If your Pass subscription went beyond December 31, 2017, we will give you (or already gave you) a prorated refund or a Microsoft gift card (see timing details below). We’ll continue to update the Windows 10 Groove Music app for PC, Xbox, and Windows Phone so you can play and manage the music you’ve purchased and downloaded to these devices, but the app will no longer stream or play Groove Music Pass content.
What happened to the Groove Music Pass?
The Groove Music Pass streaming service was discontinued on January 1, 2018. The Windows 10 Groove Music apps for PC and Windows Phone will continue to play all the music you’ve purchased and downloaded but will no longer stream or play any Groove Music Pass content.
What's happening to the Groove Music app?
We’ll continue to update the Windows 10 Groove Music apps for PC, Xbox, and Windows Phone so you can play your purchased music. On December 31, 2017, the option to stream, purchase, and download music from Groove Music was discontinued. If your purchased music was downloaded, you’ll still be able to listen to it.
What was Groove Music Pass content?
Groove Music Pass content was music and music videos that could be streamed or downloaded during your Groove Music Pass subscription. The Music Pass provided you with a streaming service of songs you didn’t need to own locally to play, as well as editorial playlist recommendations and the ability to create your own playlists.
I pre-paid for an annual Groove Music Pass. What were my options?
Your recurring annual Groove Music Pass continued through December 31, 2017. If your Pass subscription extended beyond December 31, 2017, then by February 1, 2018, Microsoft gave you a prorated refund from December 31, 2017 onwards (if we were able to issue a refund to your credit card/payment instrument on file). If we were unable to refund your payment instrument on file, Microsoft provided 120% of that prorated amount in a Microsoft gift card in your Microsoft account to spend at the Microsoft Store.
If you canceled your annual Groove Music Pass subscription before December 31, 2017, then:
- If you canceled your subscription within 30 days of the start of your subscription, we gave you a full refund if we have your credit card/payment instrument information and it supports refunds. If we couldn’t refund your payment instrument on file, we provided 120% of that amount in Microsoft gift card value.
- If you canceled your subscription after 30 days from the start of your subscription, we gave you a prorated refund (if we could issue a refund to your credit card/payment instrument on file). If we couldn’t refund your payment instrument on file, Microsoft provided 120% of that prorated amount in Store credit.
I was a monthly Groove Music Pass subscriber. What were my options?
If your subscription extended beyond December 31, 2017, then by February 1, 2018, Microsoft provided you with a prorated refund from December 31, 2017 onwards (if we could issue a refund to your credit card/payment instrument on file). If your payment instrument on file didn't support refunds, Microsoft provided 120% of that prorated amount in a Microsoft gift card.
Spotify App Not Working 2017 Youtube
I bought a Groove Music Pass and haven’t redeemed it. What are my options?
As of October 2, 2017, you can no longer redeem your Groove Music Pass. Microsoft will offer 120% of the value of your unused pre-paid Groove Music Pass as store credit to spend at the Microsoft Store. This offer is valid until December 31, 2018. If you haven’t redeemed your pass yet and want to get your credit, contact customer support.
I was a Groove Music Pass subscriber. Will my subscription automatically transfer to Spotify?
No. If you want access to tens of millions of streaming songs at no cost, you can try Spotify anytime with Spotify’s free offering.
I got my Groove Music Pass as part of a promotional offer. Am I eligible for a refund?
No. If you got your Groove Music Pass for free, and it didn’t come as part of another Microsoft purchase, you don’t qualify for a refund.
Will I still be able to play music I downloaded with Music Pass?
No. As of December 31, 2017, all Groove Music Pass content is unplayable, including streaming music, downloaded tracks, and music videos.
Will I still be able to play music I purchased from the Microsoft Store?
If you downloaded your purchased music to your devices before December 31, 2017, you’ll be able to play it through the Windows 10 Groove apps for PC, Xbox, and Windows Phone. Get more info about playing your music on iOS and Android devices. As of December 31, 2017, music isn't available for purchase or download in the Microsoft Store or for streaming in Groove.
Can I still download all my purchased music?
No. When Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the Groove Music Pass streaming service on October 2, 2017, we notified customers that purchased music would be available to download until December 31, 2017. Unfortunately, that window has now passed. If you've already downloaded your music, you can listen to it on your PC with the Windows 10 Groove apps for PC, Xbox, and Windows Phone. You can also transfer your purchased music from one of your devices to another device for your own personal, non-commercial use.
What happened to my purchased music if I didn't download it?
When Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the Groove Music Pass streaming service on October 2, 2017, we notified customers that music would be available to download until December 31, 2017. Unfortunately, that window has now passed. If you've already downloaded your music, you can listen to it on your PC with the Windows 10 Groove apps for PC, Xbox, and Windows Phone. You can also transfer your downloaded purchased music from one of your devices to another device for your own personal, non-commercial use.
Will I still be able to play my local music files?
Yes. Local files will still be playable with the Windows 10 Groove Music apps for PC and Windows Phone.
Will I still be able to play music from OneDrive?
No. On March 31, 2019, OneDrive music streaming in Groove Music will be retired. Get more info about OneDrive music streaming in Groove Music.
I wasn't a Groove Music Pass subscriber. How does this affect me?
Nothing has changed for you. You can continue to play your local, or purchased content that you have downloaded through the Windows 10 Groove Music apps for PC, Xbox, and Windows Phone. If you want access to tens of millions of streaming songs at no cost, you can try Spotify anytime with Spotify’s free offering.
Can I still move my music to Spotify?
No. When Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the Groove Music Pass streaming service on October 2, 2017, we notified customers that Groove Music Pass content would be available to move to Spotify until January 31, 2018. Unfortunately, that window has now passed.
What happened to my music after I moved it to Spotify?
All the music that had a match in Spotify’s catalog now appears in your Spotify library and playlists. All your purchased or uploaded non-Groove Music Pass music will remain untouched in the Windows 10 and Xbox Groove Music apps. Music you own and that is stored locally on your hard drive or on OneDrive is untouched and will continue to be playable from your local hard drive through the Windows 10 and Xbox Groove Music apps.
When moving my music to Spotify, I was asked to give Groove access to some information. What did you ask for and why?
To effectively move your music to Spotify, there were five pieces of information we needed temporary access to. After moving your music to Spotify, all the data we accessed from Spotify was deleted.
- 'Access your subscription details' gave Groove access to your region so we could add the correct songs to your Spotify library, since song availability differs from region to region.
- 'Access your saved tracks and albums' let Groove see what was in your Spotify library at the time so we didn't add duplicate tracks or more tracks than the library can hold.
- 'Manage your saved tracks and albums' let Groove add tracks from your Groove collection to your Spotify library.
- 'Access your private playlists' let Groove see what tracks you already had in playlists in Spotify so we didn't add duplicates.
- 'Manage your private playlists' let Groove create and add songs to playlists in Spotify to replicate the playlists you created in Groove.
I can’t find all my music from Groove after moving my collection to Spotify. What happened to it?
We did our best to preserve your collection and playlists when moving, but there may have been some cases where we couldn’t find a matching song in Spotify’s collection. If you used a Windows 10 PC to move your music, we stored a list of the songs we were unable to move in a file on your computer named GrooveMigration.txt. The file is in your music library folder, which for most people is found at C:users[username]Music. Music you own and that is stored on your hard drive or OneDrive can still be played with the Windows 10 Groove Music app.
Did playlists I followed move to Spotify?
No. Playlists you created moved to Spotify, but playlists created by Groove didn't.
As a part of my Groove Music Pass subscription, I had additional OneDrive storage. What happened to that?
If OneDrive storage was included in your Groove Music Pass subscription, your storage was reduced to OneDrive’s standard free tier plan on December 31, 2017, unless you were contacted by Microsoft.
What did you do about the Groove Music Pass customers who are over their OneDrive free storage plan limit?
Microsoft followed up directly with the small number of Groove Music Pass customers in this situation and provided options to take care of their needs.
Does Spotify stream from OneDrive?
No. Spotify doesn’t stream music from OneDrive. Music you upload to your OneDrive music folder can still be downloaded to a PC for playback in the Windows 10 Groove Music app.
What’s happening to Groove Music on iOS and Android?
Spotify App Not Responding
The Groove Music iOS and Android apps were removed from download from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store on June 1, 2018. They were retired on December 1, 2018. After that date the apps won’t work and should be uninstalled. Get more info about the Groove Music apps for iOS and Android.
What other music streaming apps are available for Windows?
![Spotify App Not Working 2017 Spotify App Not Working 2017](https://i3g4v6w8.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/spotify-windows-store-download.jpg)
Is Spotify Not Working
Depending on your region, there are many other streaming music apps in the Microsoft Store, including Pandora, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Deezer, TuneIn Radio, and SiriusXM.