Lead by Design

Brendan Marsh on the shadow-side of being ex-Spotify, the strengths and weaknesses of the Spotify model, and the secrets of excellent product leadership by design (#003)

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Brendan has worked in the tech product space for 12 years and has recently returned to Australia, after six years in Sweden. Five of those he spent with Spotify during their hyper growth phase, first as an Agile Coach and then as the Product Manager for Spotify’s desktop client.


Brendan has an eclectic mix of skills and experience, having worked as an Agile / Org Coach, Product Manager and Chief Product Officer. He's worked on mature platforms with millions of users (like Spotify for Mac / Windows), blue sky innovation features (like Spotify Running), as well as in the depths of technical infrastructure, with native client architecture and big data.



  • Product Management / Product Ownership

  • Agile and Lean Coaching

  • Product Discovery / Innovation

  • Organisational Design and Culture

  • Leadership Coaching


Brendan is particularly passionate about helping individuals, teams and organisations to accomplish their goals through working with and acknowledging the human side of work.


Throughout his time at Spotify, Brendan had the honour of giving talks across Europe about Product Discovery and the Agile Coach role, telling stories through the lens of Spotify’s culture.


Just prior to joining Organa Brendan worked at a non profit, mental health startup on a mission to bring personal growth to the masses and he joined Organa to bring lessons learned from Sweden to Australia as well wanting to be part of a company that shares the principles and ways of working I've come to love and admire.


Show notes: https://devsingh.net/brendan-marsh-on-spotify-and-product-leadership-003/


Some of the questions I ask Brendan in this conversation

  • Is there a shadow side associated with carrying that ex Spotify label?

  • What is SAFE (Scaled Agile Framework)

  • What did Spotify struggle with?

  • What did Spotify get wrong along the way?

  • What do you get asked the most?

  • What do you wish people would ask about more?

  • How, if at all, does the Spotify model foster leadership by design, and what can others learn from it?

  • How do you compete with much larger and more powerful organisations?

  • What do we give up by choosing innovation and product differentiation?

  • Was the culture at Spotify caused by the model or was it just a correlation?

  • Why did you decide to stop being an agile coach and start being a product owner? What was that experience like?

  • Are product owner and product manager two different jobs?

  • In your bio, it says that you’re particularly passionate about helping individuals, teams, and organizations to accomplish their goals. What is your experience in terms of being able to do these things through working with and acknowledging the human side of work, working as a coach and as a product manger? What is the human side of work? What does that mean?

  • Did you experience of going from being a coach to a product owner and product manager mean that you had fewer opportunities to practice mastering yourself in the moment because of the nature of these roles or did it become more important?

  • What are some of the most valuable lessons you’ve brought from Sweden back to Australia that you learned from observing mistakes, whether at Spotify or elsewhere, or making mistakes of your own?





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Lead by DesignBy Dev Singh