Apr 27, 2020
How The Tribes/Squads Model Helps Mekari Break Down Silos
I was in college when I first heard the term “silo mentality” at one of my junior year’s classes. A year later, I was working in a small company with less than 30 people when the CEO brought up the term. We were having a weekly meeting, and he highlighted that we needed to break down the silos at work.
As someone fresh out of college, I was amazed by how in such a small organization, breaking down silos is already a major problem to solve. The solution back then was quite simple though: we created a dashboard where everyone can see how the other department was doing — metrics and stuff. Fast-forward to today in Mekari with more than 500 employees, I am witnessing firsthand how the approach to breaking down silos is a little more sophisticated.
When Nadya Rachmawati, our Head of Culture & Engagement, first joined the company, one of the challenges given to her is how we can design an organizational structure that promotes scalability, minimizes growing pain, and helps us avoid silo mentality. That was the beginning of how Mekari first implemented the tribes and squads system to our company.
Before this, we already had several squads divided based on mutually exclusive development context. However, the formation was only limited to the engineering team. As we grew bigger, we realized that we needed to reorganize for better cross-functional collaboration.
Hence, Nadya and the team came up with a new organizational structure consisting of multiple tribes and squads. Each tribe represents each of our SaaS products (Jurnal, Talenta, Klikpajak) and special projects that do not cater to any specific product. Each tribe consists of around 5 squads.
What is special about the new structure is that now each tribe does not only consist of engineering people. We have product marketing, design research, and even business development/commercial people assigned to each tribe. The tribe or squad leader does not even have to be someone from the engineering or product team.
The impact of such changes has been profound from day one, especially when it comes to a smoother flow of information. One example is how it helps people from the commercial team understand the product development process better, and how it also helps the dev team to understand customers’ needs better. There are fewer needs to formally “request” data or information from other teams to make informed decisions.
Another major advantage is how the tribes/squads model is very fluid. We can swap personnel based on current needs. This, however, can also pose a challenge as the speed of change requires great internal communication to ensure everyone is up to speed with what is happening.
At Mekari, we are excited to see how the new structure will evolve and if we need iterations along the way. I personally encourage other fast-growing companies to see if this model can apply to them, so more companies can commit to breaking down silos from day one.
