Jazz Improvisation as a Model for Team Collaboration
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
"Peter Conner, our lawyer, redesigned compliance training so people took fewer courses but more relevant ones."
Julie BaherCulture Change—My Journey
May 14, 2015
"Every app built into my phone is perfect when it comes to accessibility – Apple and Android set a strong example."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility and You
June 9, 2022
"One in five people say they deal with feelings of disconnection and loneliness in the workplace."
Kat VellosOpener: The Other L Word
January 8, 2024
"We do not have online indicators in our communication software, so people know they shouldn’t wait for an immediate response."
Ana FerreiraDesigning Distributed: Leading Doist’s Fully Remote Design Team in Six Countries
January 8, 2024
"The gap between market research and user research is narrowing; their methods and questions are converging."
Jemma AhmedBringing together market and user research
October 17, 2019
"Founders are hard to recruit for research, so showing genuine interest by solving their problems helps turn them into advocates."
Prayag Narula Abhinav KrishnaDialing for Research: How to Reach the Unreachable
March 10, 2022
"Being a predominantly female team brings stereotypes and challenges, especially in male-dominated product organizations."
Maggie DieringerCutting through the Noise
September 24, 2020
"Building personal relationships with data scientists and aligning team goals melts away silos and incentives."
William Newton Jenny ChangHow to Lead With Data, and Without Data
June 7, 2023
"We should open our profession to fresh graduates and those without traditional design research backgrounds."
Yoel SumitroActions and Reflections: Bridging the Skills Gap among Researchers
March 9, 2022
