What is a Guild? Cross-squad communities of practice explained
How guilds work in agile product organizations, and how I help run the Agile Guild across all squads at endress.com in Switzerland.
Published
A “guild” is a voluntary, cross-team community built around a shared interest, discipline, or practice rather than around the delivery of a specific product. Where a squad is a standing team with shared delivery responsibility for a product area, a guild has no delivery ownership and no direct reporting line — it exists purely to spread knowledge, align practice, and raise the bar across squads that would otherwise work in isolation.
The concept comes out of the same “Spotify model” that popularized squads, tribes, and chapters. In practice, most organizations that adopt the terminology shape guilds around whatever cross-cutting concern actually needs continuous attention — accessibility, data and AI, or, in my case, the way agile teams work day to day.
How I contribute to the Agile Guild at endress.com
Alongside leading my own squad, I am an active member of the Agile Guild for endress.com in Switzerland — a cross-squad group focused on the continuous improvement of how every squad on endress.com works, not just my own. Concretely, that means:
- Co-organizing and moderating offsites and All-Hands sessions that bring squads together across the wider organization.
- Running learning and growth sessions to constantly upskill squad members in agile practice.
- Leading Squad Health Checks, a structured way of assessing how a squad is actually doing — technically, collaboratively, and in team health — and using the results to drive concrete improvements.
Guild vs. Squad
A squad owns outcomes for a specific product area, day to day, with a backlog and delivery accountability — see what a squad is for how I apply that on the Products section of endress.com. A guild owns none of that; instead it owns the health of the practice itself across every squad, which is why the same person can, and often should, be part of both.
This is also part of my day-to-day skill set as a Product Owner.
FAQ
- What is a guild in agile organizations?
- A voluntary, cross-team community built around a shared interest, discipline, or practice — not around delivering a specific product. Unlike a squad, it has no delivery ownership and no direct reporting line.
- What's the difference between a guild and a squad?
- A squad owns a product outcome day to day with delivery accountability; a guild owns the health of a practice or discipline across every squad, with no delivery responsibility of its own. The same person is often part of both at once.
- What does a guild actually do day to day?
- In practice a guild is a voluntary exchange between like-minded people — for example an Agile Guild, a UX Guild, or a Data Guild — who define their own mission and work toward it together, using that shared focus to raise the way of work across every squad rather than just one.