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
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Team collaboration can be likened to a jazz ensemble performance.
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Empathy is crucial for effective collaboration; it fosters trust and humility.
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Uncertainty should be embraced as a natural part of creativity and collaboration.
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Rules of engagement provide the necessary structure for innovation and improvisation.
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A solid framework enhances creativity rather than stifling it.
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Patterns in music are analogous to skills and methodologies in a professional setting.
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Listening to others is more important than focusing solely on one's contribution.
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Shared goals unify teams, similar to how musicians unite to create a cohesive sound.
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Improvisation relies on a foundation of established forms in both jazz and teamwork.
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Mistakes can turn into opportunities for growth if approached with the right mindset.
Notable Quotes
"We never played together before. We never rehearsed."
"Some of us met backstage for the first time today."
"How can a group of people come together and spontaneously create something that is legendary?"
"In jazz music, there's what's called 'the head.'"
"Without these rules and these conventions, we wouldn't have the creativity on top of it."
"If we had to make up the rules of engagement as we went along, it wouldn’t be nearly as smooth."
"The soloist has to begin at the start of the form and end at the end of that form."
"There are no mistakes, just missed opportunities."
"Our goal is to create a sound for you, the audience, and empathize with each other to do that."
"Big ears mean listening to other people more than you're listening to yourself."
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