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 a modern, agile way. Jim Kalbach will be joined by three special guests.
Key Insights
-
•
Miles Davis’s 'Kind of Blue' album was mostly recorded in one take without rehearsals, demonstrating the power of spontaneous collaboration within a structured framework.
-
•
Jazz improvisation is governed by an underlying invisible structure, such as a fixed melody (head), harmonies, and form, which enables creative freedom without chaos.
-
•
Jazz musicians follow established rules of engagement, like alternating solos and returning to the head, which parallels agile methodologies in software development.
-
•
Improvisation in teamwork works best when the team agrees on clear frameworks or rituals, such as design sprints or regular critiques.
-
•
Planning for uncertainty is essential in improvisation; teams prepare themselves to respond spontaneously within known boundaries.
-
•
Breakdowns of complex work into smaller cycles (like jazz measures or agile sprints) allow teams to build, measure, and learn iteratively.
-
•
Collaboration and respectful interaction are fundamental principles supporting successful improvisation and team creativity.
-
•
Design systems require substantive collaboration and dialogue to function effectively, just as jazz requires listening and interaction.
-
•
Team rituals and patterned engagement reduce the cognitive load on how to work together, allowing more energy for innovation.
-
•
Jazz improvisation’s universal conventions enable musicians worldwide to play together from minimal cues, illustrating the power of shared frameworks.
Notable Quotes
"Within improv, it’s a combination of listening and not trying to be funny."
"Miles gave them the music as they entered the studio; they didn’t know what they were going to be playing."
"Each first take was the only take, which got pressed on the album."
"We’re focused on the outcome; as soon as we count off the song, it’s going."
"Jazz has those rules of engagement."
"The head means the melody of a song."
"Instead of playing the melody Miles Davis wrote, the soloist creates a melody spontaneously."
"That unit there is kind of like a sprint."
"Design sprints are popular because they give us a format; we don’t have to improvise how we’re collaborating."
"Collaboration is your secret sauce in the end."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Stakeholders are users too; the product we’re sharing is the research and learnings for their decision-making."
Sara LogelYour Colleagues are Your Users Too
March 29, 2023
"The harder I think, the further I am from the answer."
Dan WillisEnterprise Storytelling Sessions
May 13, 2015
"Many of us are already doing things called for in sustainability guidelines like accessibility and user research."
Aiyana Bodi James Christie Marc O'Brien Louis RosenfeldThree Key Climate Initiatives and How You Can Help
September 11, 2024
"Mastery is achievable, whether you have 10,000 hours or not—it’s about building that portfolio and case studies."
Liam ThurstonWhy Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It
June 10, 2022
"We’re exploring if design ops should host a cross-product scrum team focused on visionary redesigns to have bigger impact."
Chris MosesStretching the Definition of DesignOps with Product Development
November 7, 2018
"Silos are inevitable but as enterprise designers, we find ways to work across them to get our job done."
Janaki KumarInnovate with Purpose
June 14, 2018
"Sometimes you need somebody else to tell you something obvious, like consultants should not be expected to know everything upfront."
Smitha Papolu Nova Wehman-Brown Melissa Schmidt Adam MenterTheme 3 Discussion
January 8, 2024
"One of the most important parts of any successful research study is your research sample."
Noah BondRedefining truth and inclusivity: Navigating data ownership and ethical research in the age of disinformation
March 11, 2025
"The project was staffed through a revolving door of panic hires who were expected to run from day one."
Tanya SnookDesigning the team experience: Building culture through onboarding
November 4, 2021
