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
"Don’t lead with your research process; lead with the insights because no one cares about the process until they want to challenge it."
Nathan ShedroffDouble Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically
March 31, 2020
"Two UX designers at Amazon built a movement of 8,700 employees that led to Amazon announcing their climate pledge."
Jamie Beck Alexander Nina Gregg Shawn Petersen Bill DeRoucheyHow can you find your role in climate?
January 17, 2024
"During the pandemic, we learned to have awkward and uncomfortable conversations about people’s realities."
Francesca Barrientos, PhDYou Need Your Own Definition of Design Maturity
June 8, 2022
"Half of Airbnb’s traffic is from non-English devices and 80% of bookings involve at least one party outside the U.S."
Wyatt HaymanGlobal Research Panels
August 8, 2020
"If you find yourself in a jungle of information, the first thing you need is a map — a thorough content inventory."
Dan WillisEnterprise Storytelling Sessions
June 8, 2016
"You don’t want to game anybody here. This is persuasion by evidence, not by trickery."
Daniel J. RosenbergDesigning with and for Artificial Intelligence
August 11, 2022
"Our mission is to support the methods and processes devoted to producing high quality design."
Jilanna WilsonDistributed DesignOps Management
February 26, 2019
"We actively coach Department of PFML staff to shadow and eventually run their own research sessions so they’re empowered long-term."
Lisa Spitz Nikki BrandBuilding Trust Through Equitable Research Practices
November 18, 2022
"As a designer and leader in this space, I've had to learn a lot about policy so I can come in and have really deep discussions with policy folks as a peer."
Toby HaugDiscussion
June 9, 2017
