The Jazz Process Collaboration, Innovation, and Agility

by Cho, Adrian

• ISBN13: 9780321636454
• ISBN10: 0321636457
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-08
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Summary

What Can Your Team Learn from Jazz Musicians? Experienced jazz musicians apply specific principles to collaborate, execute, and manage change in real timedelivering extraordinary innovation in the face of non-stop pressure and risk. Now, jazz musician and collaboration expert Adrian Cho shows how you can apply the same principles to dramatically improve any teamrs"s performance. Cho systematically introduces the Jazz Process and demonstrates how it can help cross-functional teams improve teamwork, innovation, and execution. www.jazzprocess.com informit.com/aw

Author Biography

Adrian Cho is exceptionally well-qualified to draw parallels between the worlds of jazz, business, and software. As a bassist and conductor, he leads the critically acclaimed symphonic jazz ensemble, Impressions in Jazz Orchestra. At IBM, he manages development of IBM Rational Team Concert, the first product built on IBM's Jazz team collaboration platform, as well as Rational s Collaborative Application Lifecycle Management project. As a manager of intellectual property, Adrian has played a key role in the Eclipse and Jazz initiatives of open innovation.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. xv
Foreword	p. xvi
Preface	p. xx
Acknowledgments	p. xxiii
About the Author	p. xxv
Introduction	p. 1
Working
Use Just Enough Rules	p. 21
The Need for Rules	p. 21
Employing Just Enough Rules	p. 23
Breaking the Rules	p. 26
Defining a Process	p. 28
Documenting a Process	p. 30
Evolving and Improving a Process	p. 32
Employ Top Talent	p. 35
The Human Element	p. 35
Individuality	p. 37
The Importance of Awareness	p. 40
Enabling Organizational Agility	p. 44
Managing Human Resources	p. 45
Put the Team First	p. 47
Putting the Team First	p. 47
Absorbing Mistakes as a Team	p. 49
Avoiding Groupthink	p. 51
Team Awareness	p. 52
Acknowledging Everyone's Efforts	p. 53
Avoiding Team Elitism	p. 54
Build Trust and Respect	p. 57
Trust and Respect	p. 57
Benefits of Trust and Respect	p. 58
Developing Trust and Respect	p. 60
Acknowledging Efforts and Results	p. 63
When Trust and Respect Are Lost	p. 65
Commit with Passion	p. 69
Commitment	p. 69
Less Work Requires More Commitment	p. 71
Be Willing to Make Mistakes	p. 74
Those Who Support the Team	p. 77
Performing with Passion	p. 78
Performing in Social Media	p. 80
Collaborating
Essentials of Execution	p. 85
Feedback and the Birth of Cybernetics	p. 86
Feedback Loops	p. 87
Hunting Cause 1: Trying Too Hard	p. 89
Hunting Cause 2: Reacting Too Slowly	p. 90
Breaking Out of Positive Feedback Loops	p. 91
John Boyd and the OODA Loop	p. 92
The Lessons of Blitzkrieg	p. 95
OODA and the Jazz Process	p. 97
Listen for Change	p. 103
Observing	p. 103
What We Observe	p. 107
Identifying and Ignoring Noise	p. 111
Data Versus Information	p. 113
Measuring Success	p. 115
Change Is Unavoidable	p. 119
Consideration 1: Cognitive Biases	p. 121
Consideration 2: Thinking Outside the Box	p. 124
Consideration 3: Seeing Through the Fog	p. 125
Responding to Change	p. 127
Identifying Change	p. 129
Lead on Demand	p. 133
Our Fascination with Leadership	p. 133
Taking Initiative	p. 134
Decentralizing Leadership	p. 136
Helping the Team Navigate	p. 140
The Importance of Following	p. 141
Act Transparently	p. 145
Transparency in the Execution Cycle	p. 145
Authenticity	p. 150
Openness	p. 154
Timeliness	p. 157
Clarity	p. 159
Considerations	p. 161
Make Contributions Count	p. 165
Contributing in Collaborative Scenarios	p. 165
Measuring Contributions: Saying More with Less	p. 170
Timing	p. 178
Location and Proximity	p. 179
Executing
Reduce Friction	p. 185
Concepts of Friction	p. 185
Reducing Friction	p. 188
Optimizing Friction	p. 190
Maintain Momentum	p. 197
Concepts of Momentum	p. 197
Form	p. 199
Tempo	p. 202
Pulse	p. 205
Groove	p. 207
Momentum in an Organization	p. 210
Maintaining Momentum	p. 212
Stay Healthy	p. 219
The Importance of Health	p. 219
Causes of Injury	p. 223
Prevention	p. 225
Chronic Conditions	p. 227
Recovery	p. 228
Shock	p. 231
Monitoring Health	p. 231
Innovating
Exchange Ideas	p. 237
Creativity and Innovation	p. 237
Benefits of Innovation	p. 239
Enabling Innovation with Collaboration	p. 240
Enabling Innovation with Diversity	p. 242
Enabling Innovation with Dialogue	p. 244
Fostering Innovation	p. 246
Take Measured Risks	p. 251
Managing Risk	p. 251
Risks of Failing to Diversify	p. 252
Risks of Applying Best Practices	p. 253
Taking Risks	p. 255
Risks of Using Just Enough Rules	p. 255
Risks of Employing Top Talent	p. 256
Risks of Putting the Team First	p. 257
Risks of Building Trust and Respect	p. 258
Risks of Committing with Passion	p. 258
Risks of Listening for Change	p. 259
Risks of Leading on Demand	p. 261
Risks of Acting Transparently	p. 261
Risks of Making Contributions Count	p. 263
Risks of Reducing Friction	p. 263
Risks of Maintaining Momentum	p. 263
Risks of Staying Healthy	p. 264
Risks of Exchanging Ideas	p. 264
Coda	p. 267
Works Cited	p. 269
Index	p. 281
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Preface"Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in."Amy Lowell, nineteenth-century American poet About This BookThis book is an artistic expression that captures some of my personal thoughts about the world in which we work and play. Although I didn't write this book with a thematic approach in mind, three themes emerged from the text in support of the concepts you'll find herein. Their presence is no surprise, as they are principles I value and have come to rely on over the years.The first of these themes is diversity . I feel fortunate to have been exposed to a degree of diversity throughout my life. From a cultural perspective, I was born in Australia, where I spent the first 30 years of my life. My mother is Chinese, and my father was most likely Australian, although I can't be certain. In primary (elementary) school, I was the only child of Asian descent in a student body of approximately 600 students. Back then, Australia was less racially diverse than it is today. My reaction to the way other children treated me was to reject my Chinese ancestry. Fortunately, my attitude changed as I grew up, and I began to embrace the differences that come with diversity and to realize how those differences have enriched my life. In 2000, I moved to Ottawa, Canada, where I live with my wife, Deborah, an American Lutheran pastor. We live on the rural outskirts of Ottawa and share our home with a large family of cats and dogs. Career-wise, my interests have always been many and varied, but arts and technology were particularly important to me since an early age. I could never decide between the two and eventually developed parallel careers in the software industry and in music. I've long been fascinated by diversity in teams. In the arts, I am always looking for ways to bring together artists from multiple genres or disciplines. I like to form musical ensembles that include both classical and jazz musicians and perform works that span genres and challenge both musicians and audiences. I also like to stage productions that bring together artists from a variety of disciplines, including visual artists, actors, dancers, and musicians. In business, I enjoy the dynamics of cross-functional teams, and I'm often trying to find ways to integrate multiple disciplines.Unification is another strong current in this book. It comes from the belief that although people are all different, many ties bind us together. More specifically, although we all work and play in a wide variety of domains, certain principles are universally applicable. We all deal collectively with many of the same fundamental problems; only our contexts differ. Jazz musicians must constantly collaborate, innovate, and manage change, and they have to do so in real time. The same is true of a basketball team, a squad of soldiers, and a team in business. Although it's natural to look toward fellow disciples when seeking solutions to the problems we encounter in our work, I've found that some of the best inspiration can come from people working in completely different disciplines. In this book, you'll find examples of excellence drawn not only from software development and music, but also from business, military operations, and sports. You'll also find the application of laws from the disciplines of soci