Why bands rock harder than teams
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Teams are everywhere. It seems that in the information industry any group of people is called a team. Unfortunately, most of these teams have nothing else in common with the definition of a team than the fact that they consist of more than one person. So, to me it seems that the word team has suffered from a severe devaluation and it might be time to come up with a better name to use instead.
Let’s take a look at Wikipedia:
A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team. Teams normally have members with complementary skills and generate synergy through a coordinated effort which allows each member to maximize his or her strengths and minimize his or her weaknesses.
In Peopleware
While I think DeMarco and Lister have a point, I’d say that there is something more in great teams that isn’t present in choirs. I’d suggest a different musical analogy: a rock band. In the following section, think about your favorite rock band, or if you can’t think of any, you can borrow my favorites, Switchfoot or U2.
- Bands stick together: In business, teams are often formed to complete just one project, and when the project is over, they are dismantled and new “teams” are created. When team members know that pretty soon they will be assigned with some other people, how can we assume that they would form a sticky team identity? It might happen in the first project, but I doubt that the second time would be a success.
U2 however have been playing together for decades, and they still strive for new sounds and even better ways to touch the hearts of their audience. The more records they make together, the better their sounds complement each other.
So, I suggest you give your teams time to form and don’t break them. Let your teams stick together, learn together, fail and succeed together. - Bands choose their members: This is quite the contrary to how it goes in business where bosses form teams and hand out tasks to them. Bands start out because they want to play together with their friends whereas teams are formed first and then we just hope that they will get along as well as possible. Some companies have started allowing their people form groups with people they like and then bid for the projects they would like to do. I hope more people would start doing that.
- Band members are allowed to improvise: Each of the band members have their own unique roles in the music that is being created. One plays the guitar, another beats his drums, and so on. The most important goal is to create a harmony of sounds that touches the listener, but in addition to that each member being the best expert of her own instrument has the right to improvise and define how to use her skills to make the end result the greatest possible. Kent Beck says well in his article, The new methodology: “When you want to hire and retain good people, you have to recognize that they are competent professionals. As such they are the best people to decide how to conduct their technical work.”
- Bands have an identity: How many software teams do you know by name? Usually you know the product but not the people behind it. In music however, the band is often more important. When I listened to my first Switchfoot album, I thought it was great, and I had to get their older albums as well. I didn’t think that their record label is great, or that it’s just the album, but instead I recognised that it’s all about the people, the band. That rarely happens in business. In the early days of Electronic Arts, Trip Hawkins had a dream of presenting his programmers as rock stars, but when the business grew, this became history. Someone should bring this idea back, with today’s technology. Think about it: What if your team would have a name, a Myspace site, maybe a blog, and some fancy promo pictures? It would connect the customers (fans) with the team, and give the team a feeling of superiority which would help them strive towards even better products?
- Bands are passionate: Passion about music and a burning desire to bring it to the audience makes bands do unique things. They put their hearts in the music making it interesting and unique. How many software products are like that? 37 Signals is probably the most famous example of putting passion in your work. Their opinionated software has a unique feel about it, something that says that it was done by this specific bunch of people, this band.
If our teams would be more like bands, we would see lots of products that are much more passionate, unique and enjoyable. At the same time the teams would gain followers who want to know what’s going on with their favorite team, eagerly waiting for them to create their next product. There are a few companies that get it, but there is definitely more room left in the corporate world for new bands like 37 signals. Go for it, create a band and rock the world!
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June 10th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Excellent analogy. In the business environment there are just too many factors to motivate individuals to not cooperate.
In business, the individual on a team, has to look out for themselves, get promoted, push the use of their specialty.
The deck is stacked against business ‘teams’.
June 10th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Thanks, Roger!
You’re right, the competition between team members is one of the most destructive factors against team formation. When everyone should be looking out for the common good, they are actually just looking for ways to promote themselves, get a better position and a better salary.
Quite often team members are positioned on a different level in the company hierarchy, which puts the team members in a position where some of the members have more power than others. For example when lead programmers and lead artist are reporting to the team leader, and then some other artists and programmers to those leads, I don’t think we can speak about teams anymore. This hierarchy breaks the feeling of a common goal: the ownership belongs to the leads and the rest of the staff are just working on the project. And as you said, in a situation like this it’s not uncommon that the regular guys are competing for the lead positions and the leads want to be project leads, and so on…
I’m not saying that this approach doesn’t work. Sometimes it’s good, but it definitely isn’t what autonomous teams are all about. And definitely what bands are about.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:06 am
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