2023 IN HINDSIGHT | PROJECT MANAGEMENT | AGILE | SCALING AGILE | DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

From Scaling Up to Scaling Back

Does Agile at scale have anything to do with the layoffs at Spotify?

Music streaming giant Spotify announced in December its plan to lay off approximately 1500 employees, or 17% of its workforce, as a cost-cutting measure. This move follows earlier workforce reductions in January and June, adding up to an impressive overall 24% in one year.

Many associate Spotify to unrestricted access to a vast array of music (with a few notable exceptions). But for me, for my project-tunnel-vision, and for my irreducible belief that one should pay a fair price for good art, Spotify is primarily the origin of “The Spotify Model for Scaling Agile”.

An example of a “scaled Agile“ organizational structurel — Drawing by Fabio Turel

So I cannot help wonder what is happening at a company whose organization for projects has become an eponymous methodology. Without specific details on the strategy behind these layoffs, one can only speculate about their relation to the famed ‘Spotify method’. Does implementing Agile on a large scale lead to such efficiency that it results in substantial redundancies?

Or, conversely, does Agile at scale, with its seemingly complex processes, contribute to inefficiencies…