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
Mike Davidson
Fireside Chat
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Sam Proulx
Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Bob Baxley
Leading with Design Operations Past and Present
2019 • DesignOps Community
Jemma Ahmed
Theme Panel
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Kristin Skinner
Five Years of DesignOps
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Benjamin Real
Showing the Value of DesignOps by Not Having a DesignOps Team
2020 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Emily Williams
When UX Research and Institutional Racism Collide: A Case Study
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
PJ Buddhari
Meet Spectrum, Adobe’s Design System
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Sheryl Cababa
Thinking in systems to address climate with Sheryl Cababa
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Jemma Ahmed
Theme 2 Intro
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Ali Jeffery
How DesignOps Helped Enable Wall Street to Work Remotely
2020 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Dave Malouf
The Past, Present, and Future of DesignOps: a 2-part DesignOps Community Call (Part 1)
2022 • DesignOps Community
Laine Riley Prokay
How DesignOps can Drive Inclusive Career Ladders for All
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Stephen Pollard
Closing Keynote: Getting giants to dance - what can we learn from designing large and complex public infrastructure?
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Jackie Velasquez-Ross
Talent Acquisition and Our Responsibility
2020 • DesignOps Community
Alana Washington
Theme 3 Intro
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold

More Videos

Clara Kliman-Silver

"Trust is paramount; designers want transparency about what the AI is trained on and what data it uses."

Clara Kliman-Silver

UX Futures: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Design

June 7, 2023

Steve Baty

"Cross-training helps teams feel more capable and less afraid of losing their jobs during transitions, creating less resistance to change."

Steve Baty Richard Dalton Maria Giudice Harry Max

Discussion

June 9, 2016

Jodi Forlizzi

"The most successful AI innovations come from moderate AI performance that’s good enough to provide real value."

Jodi Forlizzi

Design and AI innovation

June 5, 2024

Dan Willis

"Know-it-alls claim to know what to do and how users behave, but if they knew the answers, why bring in research?"

Dan Willis

Enterprise Storytelling Sessions

June 8, 2016

Rachel Posman

"How are executives going to invest in you if you don’t show the work? If they can’t see it, they won’t invest."

Rachel Posman John Calhoun

"Ask Me Anything" with Rachel Posman and John Calhoun, Authors of the Upcoming Rosenfeld Book, The Design Conductors

September 25, 2024

Louis Rosenfeld

"The greatest sin of the designer is to say I have the answers and no one else is allowed to have them."

Louis Rosenfeld

Discussion: What Operations can teach DesignOps

November 6, 2017

Ross Smith

"Stories are great and build empathy, but how representative are those stories of the broader customer base?"

Ross Smith

Breaking Barriers with Empathy

June 9, 2017

Weidan Li

"Many of ChatGPT's organizing themes are at the same level as the basic themes, which is confusing and inappropriate."

Weidan Li

Qualitative synthesis with ChatGPT: Better or worse than human intelligence?

June 4, 2024

Chelsea Mauldin

"Everyone can see how much everyone else makes through our transparent pay scale tied to observable criteria."

Chelsea Mauldin

Let's Talk About Money

November 17, 2022