Agile the Band

The term Agile carries a lot of baggage. The method is often misused, its implementation superficial, sometimes worsening the problems it is supposed to fix. This misuse has tainted its reputation so much that I hesitate to endorse it. Nevertheless, Agile can foster a culture of collaboration, reflection, honest dialog, and a reliable sequence of verifiable outputs when applied strategically.

How can we call for better Agile methods without people thinking we want them to just go through the motions, making delivery riskier and work unpleasant?

In thinking about this, an analogy came to mind that I hope will illustrate the behavior and mindset a team needs to benefit from Agile.

Imagine you are in a band, creating music for a specific audience. Today, the music industry leans more towards releasing singles than full albums, so we do that. In our band, everyone is engaged in our creative approach and invested in creating music our fans love. While there are certainly specialists, we have overlapping skills, such as in guitar playing and singing, with some members excelling technically in drums and keyboards. Yet, every member contributes to creative efforts—like brainstorming instrumentals, song arrangements, or tones.

Let’s consider if Agile software development and publishing music have compelling parallels.

Iterative Development/Release:

• Agile: Software is developed in sprints derived from epics, after which a shippable product increment gets released.
• Music: The band releases a series of songs one at a time over several months rather than waiting to release an entire album.

Feedback Loop:

• Agile: After shipping a product increment, it is possible to incorporate user or stakeholder feedback in future iterations.
• Music: After releasing each song, artists can gather feedback from fans, critics, and peers. This feedback can influence subsequent songs’ production, arrangement, or promotion.

Adaptability:

• Agile: Agile methodologies prioritize adaptability and responsiveness to change. The development process can quickly pivot if market conditions, user needs, or technologies change.
• Music: Similarly, if an artist notices a particular style or song resonating more with the audience, they might explore that direction further in their subsequent releases.

Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery:

• Agile: In software, CI/CD practices ensure that code changes are automatically tested and prepared for release, allowing frequent and reliable releases.
• Music: With today’s digital platforms, artists can more seamlessly produce, finalize, and release songs, ensuring a steady stream of content to listeners. If there is a defect, it is possible to upload a new version.

Collaboration and Cross-functionality:

• Agile: Agile teams are often cross-functional, with members from diverse disciplines (e.g., developers with different specializations, product managers, designers, researchers) collaborating closely.
• Music: Producing a song involves collaboration between songwriters, instrumentalists, vocalists, producers, and sound engineers.

MVP (Minimum Viable Product):

• Agile: Teams might release a minimal product version to gauge interest and gather feedback before investing in more advanced features.
• Music: An artist might release a stripped-down acoustic or low-fidelity song version to test audience reception before creating a more elaborate production.

Incremental Progress:

• Agile: The focus is on making consistent, incremental progress toward the end goal, delivering value at each step.
• Music: Each song released contributes to the artist’s broader narrative, portfolio, or eventual album.

This analogy has many flaws. For instance, a band could use a recording approach where all the drums get recorded for each song, then all the guitars, etc., a waterfall approach that reduces studio costs. Then, there is the live recording of an album that doesn’t have a direct counterpart in the analogy.

My main point isn’t to note similarities but to call attention to gaps we see where the Agile team should resemble the band.

Sticking together: To release a song, the band members need to get behind that one song and ensure that the part they are responsible for fits all the other parts across various music considerations. The band members have important conversations about this regularly.

Aligning priorities: As a band, we must find a way to get people on the same page in how we work. Someone may have a vision for the percussion that can’t realistically happen for the next release. How can we find a way to compromise and still make a hit?

Recognize the challenge of finishing: Every band member understands that certain things must happen to get a song done. Truly finishing a song requires a surprising amount of effort, especially leading up to release, as there are a lot of little but important details, like removing background noise from a recording.

Shared ownership: All the band members are invested in the music and feel empowered to say and do things that help get the music out there, whether jumping in with support or providing constructive feedback.

Valuing releasing itself: We don’t want to spend all this creative effort in the band and never provide anything to our fans. As much as we love our craft and value creating high-quality work, we understand that we must release songs to succeed and even be taken seriously as a group.

No assholes: Bands have a lot of different and sometimes difficult personalities. Still, they sort it out, holding everyone accountable for good conduct, such as a kind approach to criticizing someone else’s creative outputs.

Collaborative decision-making: Sometimes, the fans think there is this front-woman who calls all the shots, but behind the scenes, how we write songs and choose melodies is a group decision. It isn’t always easy, but we value each other's perspective and work through it. Some of our best band members used to be in a group with this dictator who paid for the tour bus and wanted to make every decision, but that band never made it.

The world doesn’t need more crappy music or lousy software. Nobody likes consuming it, and nobody likes creating it. We must find ways to work together, respectfully and strategically to accomplish work we can be proud of in the service of others.