Why does Viber need guilds?
When Peleg joined Viber three and a half years ago, the company was moving to a new Business Units model. He noticed that similar domains (Android developers, Backend, and so on) were scattered across many teams without enough coordination.
The move to an agile model made the problem worse. Instead of one large Android team, there were suddenly 2 or 3 Android people on every team, each doing whatever they wanted. It was clear they somehow needed to be brought together.
How were the guilds set up?
Peleg brought the idea from his own experience at a previous company, along with inspiration from Wix and Spotify. He wrote an initial document, gathered the strongest people in each domain, and essentially "signed them up" to become the future Guild Masters.
The process included:
- Presenting the idea both upward (to management) and downward (to the teams)
- Each Guild Master going off to build their guild's agenda and specific needs
- Setting up a Guild Council with team leads and other leaders
- Giving each Guild Master the autonomy to develop the guild according to its needs
At first there were 9 guilds. At some point they dropped to 8, then went back up to 9. The guilds were chosen based on how the teams were spread out and where alignment was needed.
How are the guilds structured?
- Guild Council: 3 or 4 leaders (a Guild Master plus team leads) who meet weekly or biweekly.
- Guild Days: monthly events with tech presentations or use cases.
- Shared calendar: each guild publishes its events, with cross-guild invitations.
- An informal daily: it started as a ceremony and became a social thing.
What's the win-win of guilds?
- For the organization: alignment and standardization across scattered teams, knowledge sharing that prevents "reinventing the wheel," and more efficient hiring and onboarding.
- For employees: professional growth, a break from routine, a chance to have impact beyond their direct role, and a wider professional network.
What challenges did you run into?
- Convincing management: dedicating time and resources to something that doesn't deliver immediate results.
- Replacing Guild Masters: a big event that can cause a guild to fade.
- Balancing delivery with the guild: "Sometimes the day-to-day wins, and delivery wins."
- Getting people on board: how to turn people from passive consumers into active participants.
- Cultural challenges: differences in sharing culture between countries.
Tips for setting up guilds successfully
- Patience: give people time to process the idea and understand what it means.
- Small steps and wins: show value gradually and prove it works.
- Start small: even in just a few places, show it works and grow from there.
- Don't be afraid of the investment: it takes capacity, but the impact is very high.
What worked for me was being patient and not shoving it down their throats, but letting them process it, letting them understand what it means, moving in small steps, and showing wins. Because in the end, when something works, it works, and everyone's happy with it.