Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Jazz Improvisation as a Model for Team Collaboration
Gold
Monday, November 6, 2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Share the love for this talk
Jazz Improvisation as a Model for Team Collaboration
Speakers: Jim Kalbach
Link:

Summary

Great collaboration is the secret sauce of successful development teams. At its core, collaboration comes from the culture of your company and the dynamics of your team. This entertaining session will demonstrate how the dynamics of jazz improvisation serve as a model for better teamwork with live music on stage. The lessons from jazz are particularly important for design, much of which involves collaborating with others: gathering requirements from stakeholders, ideating in project teams, and iterating with developers. Great design requires practitioners to be not only skilled craftsmen equipped with the right tools, but also expert collaborators and facilitators. Jazz gives us a model to help us move in that direction in an modern, agile way. Jim Kalbach will be joined by three special guests.

Key Insights

  • Jazz musicians rely on established rules like the head-solo-head structure to enable spontaneous creativity.

  • Patterns such as the 251 chord progression form a vital library for jazz improvisation and can be drawn from lifelong practice.

  • Jazz soloists often quote familiar melodies and TV themes as playful, recognizable patterns embedded in their solos.

  • Embracing uncertainty is a core mindset in jazz, allowing musicians to improvise without knowing the outcome upfront.

  • Miles Davis famously turned a wrong note played by Herbie Hancock into a creative opportunity, illustrating that there are no mistakes, only missed opportunities.

  • Empathy and deep listening ('big ears') enable musicians to adapt to one another in real time and maintain a cohesive group sound.

  • Turn-taking and timing are governed by universal, often unspoken, rules that make jazz jams smooth across cultures.

  • The shared framework in jazz parallels design ops providing structure so designers can innovate within known constraints.

  • Live jazz bands can spontaneously perform legendary music without rehearsal by leveraging trust, empathy, and shared frameworks.

  • Trust and humility, fostered through empathy, help musicians and teams handle mistakes and uncertainties productively.

Notable Quotes

"We have never played together before and never rehearsed, yet we pulled off a great rendition spontaneously."

"Miles Davis gave the musicians the music as they entered the studio, and most first takes were the final ones."

"In jazz, the structure is head, I solo, you solo, then back to head—repeated often and universally."

"Without these rules and conventions, we wouldn’t be able to improvise."

"Jazz soloists draw from a lifetime of patterns, sometimes quoting TV theme songs like the Muppets or Sanford and Son."

"There are no mistakes in jazz, just missed opportunities."

"Embracing uncertainty means diving in without knowing the outcome and creating something new every time."

"Having big ears means listening more to others than to yourself during a performance."

"Empathy in jazz means the band is in it together—when someone plays a wrong chord, the rest adapt and turn it into an opportunity."

"Design ops’ job is like jazz rules—it provides a framework so creativity can flow without worrying about inventing structure mid-process."

Ask the Rosenbot
Sam Proulx
Understanding Screen Readers on Mobile: How And Why to Learn from Native Users
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Sam Proulx
Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Discussion
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Peter Van Dijck
Building impactful AI products for design and product leaders, Part 3: Understand AI architectures: RAG, Agents, Oh My!
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Jeff Gothelf
Who does what by how much?
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Conference
Jim Kalbach
Peace is waged with sticky notes: Mapping Real-World Experiences
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Brian Moss
What Does it Mean to be a Resilient Research Team?
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Chris Geison
Theme 1 Intro
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Noz Urbina
Rapid AI-powered UX (RAUX): A framework for empowering human designers
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Uday Gajendar
Day 2 Welcome
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Saara Kamppari-Miller
DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility
2022 • DesignOps Community
Ana Ferreira
Designing Distributed: Leading Doist’s Fully Remote Design Team in Six Countries
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Wendy Johansson
An Education on Design Education for Orgs
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Alana Washington
Theme 3 Intro
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Jennifer Kong
Journeying toward AI-assisted documentation in healthcare
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Erin May
Distributed, Democratized, Decentralized: Finding a Research Model to Support Your Org
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold

More Videos

Doug Powell

"The user experience will allow us to win."

Doug Powell

Closing Keynote: Design at Scale

November 8, 2018

Mila Kuznetsova

"A growth mindset in research means being ready to adapt protocols based on what actually works with participants."

Mila Kuznetsova Lucy Denton

How Lessons Learned from Our Youngest Users Can Help Us Evolve our Practices

March 9, 2022

Sarah Gallimore

"Backcast from preferred or risky futures to start thinking about what we need to do today to get there or avoid that outcome."

Sarah Gallimore

Inspire Progress with Artifacts from the Future

November 18, 2022

Lada Gorlenko

"You can’t really advocate for UX or move an organization forward without interacting with your team and business colleagues."

Lada Gorlenko Sharbani Dhar Sébastien Malo Rob Mitzel Ivana Ng Michal Anne Rogondino

Theme 1: Discussion

January 8, 2024

Alnie Figueroa

"AI is just a better version of the tools you’re already using to refine ideas and express thoughts."

Alnie Figueroa

The Future of Design Operations: Transforming Our Craft

September 10, 2025

Landon Barnes

"Mixed methods research, combining qualitative and quantitative, gives the fullest understanding of customer experience."

Landon Barnes

Are My Research Findings Actually Meaningful?

March 10, 2022

Emily Eagle

"When you’re talking, it’s easier to learn something new, but if you’re shy and don’t talk, you don’t learn anything."

Emily Eagle

Can't Rewind: Radio and Retail

June 3, 2019

Malini Rao

"Keep a pulse on your team morale because re-platforming journeys can either enrich or burn out your people."

Malini Rao

Lessons Learned from a 4-year Product Re-platforming Journey

June 9, 2021

Asia Hoe

"Designers are often seen as bottlenecks because our work is harder to estimate and track than engineering’s."

Asia Hoe

Partnering with Product: A Journey from Junior to Senior Design

November 29, 2023