In our first episode, we’re thrilled to interview Simon Marcus, the VP of Operations at Spotify. As part of the leadership team at Spotify, Simon has played a pivotal role in the development of Spotify Rhythm, Spotify’s internal innovation program.
Prior to Spotify, he was Chief Operating Officer of The Library Corporation, where he lead an extraordinary whole-company lean/agile practice. He also co-founded TLC Labs, an enterprise innovation lab at the forefront of exploring change management, organizational design, process improvement, product design, and user experience.
In this episode, join us as we cover:
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How Spotify manages “bets,” strategic decision making and execution with Spotify Rhythm
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How Simon is focusing on creating an environment where employees are comfortable to “tinker in a corner”
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Why Simon is skeptical of over-investing into internal branding when it comes to fostering internal adoption of “innovation initiatives”
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How Spotify manages areas of exploration across a simple portfolio Kanban broken down into Now (stuff being fully productized), Next (pretty confident in problem space, now focused on validating solution space) and Later (exploring the problem space).
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How Simon leads up operations at Spotify, yet remains heavily focused on structuring operations around continuing to innovate instead of just refining existing products
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Why a high-trust environment acts as the foundation for thriving as an organization
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How prior to Spotify, Simon helped The Library Corporation coped with the disruption of libraries
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Why the part-time initiative model isn’t conducive to innovation
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How The Library Corporation introduced Lean Startup into their organization