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
Tuesday, June 4, 2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
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 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."

Ask the Rosenbot
Louis Rosenfeld
How to use the Rosenbot
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Joerg Beringer
Scaling User Research with AI: Continuous Discovery of User Needs in Minutes
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Anne Mamaghani
How Your Organization's Generative Workshops Are Probably Going Wrong and How to Get Them Right
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Sean Baker
Weaving Knowledge Management into the Fabric of Our Design Practice
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Maria Giudice
Becoming a Changemaker by Leading with Design
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Liza Pemstein
Scaling Research Via an Ops First Model at Clever
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Changying (Z) Zheng
From prototype to production: Vibe coding design for real engineering systems
2026 • Designing with AI 2026
Conference
Iulia Cornigeanu
QuantQual Book Club: Small Data
2024 • QuantQual Interest Group
Sydney Lawson
Anatomy of a Strong User Panel
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Farid Sabitov
Automatization for Large Enterprise Teams
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Andy Polaine
What is the role of service design in product-led organizations?
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Libby Maurer
Treating Diversity & Inclusion in Hiring as a Design Problem
2019 • Enterprise Community
Louis Rosenfeld
Welcome / Housekeeping
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Deanna Washington
Scaling Success: Paving the Path from DesignOps to VP
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Kate Towsey
ResearchOps AMA with Kate Towsey & Jake Burghardt
2025 • Advancing Research Community
Bria Alexander
Theme Two Intro
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold

More Videos

Victor Udoewa

"Will you learn to let go? Better yet, will you let go?"

Victor Udoewa

Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion

March 26, 2024

Paul Pangaro, PhD

"Cybernetics is the discipline of systems with purpose, looking at how a system acts to achieve its goals."

Paul Pangaro, PhD

Systems Disciplines: Table Stakes for 21st Century Organizations

June 6, 2023

Amy Jiménez Márquez

"Facilitation is essential—not just for design work but to build alignment and manage people."

Amy Jiménez Márquez Michael J. Metts Joie Chung

The Atypical UX Manager Path

July 23, 2020

Melissa Tsang

"We redesigned how we spend time together by moving announcements to asynchronous channels so meetings could focus on innovation."

Melissa Tsang

From Insights to Action: Driving Business Values through DesignOps

January 8, 2024

Sam Proulx

"I don’t remember a time when there wasn’t a computer in the house talking at me."

Sam Proulx

To Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility

June 10, 2022

Saara Kamppari-Miller

"By designing products through the lens of edge cases like disabilities first, they often become better products for everyone."

Saara Kamppari-Miller

DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility

May 26, 2022

Alana Washington

"What are the small steps teams can take to sustain their energy and well-being over time?"

Alana Washington

Theme 1: Introduction and Provocation

January 8, 2024

Laura Schaefer

"Bringing a plan, even if it’s wrong, gets people to respond and engage more than waiting for the perfect idea."

Laura Schaefer

DesignOps: A Conduit for Inclusion

September 9, 2022

Patrick Boehler

"Journalists experiencing the same trauma as samurai during the Meiji Restoration – once warriors, now unsure of their role."

Patrick Boehler Madison Karas

The service shift: transforming media organizations to create real value through design

November 19, 2025