A good Digital Team is like a good band
The view from the back of the stage
By Les Lakewood, developer and drummer
The typical setup of a band places the front-person in the centre of the stage for the audience to see most clearly, we often see guitars or keyboards placed on either side of the singer, and tucked away behind it all is the drummer — lucky if anyone can see them at all. If the drums are doing their job, the whole band is riding the builds and swells of cymbals and tom rolls, kept together with a steady beat. The magic happens when the whole band finds each other in that beat, a platform to build on, giving a bass the permission to be groovy, the guitarist the chance to delight our eardrums, and for the front-person to deliver the message. That’s why we go to concerts, to see the whole band performing together. To watch the musicians’ glances as they shift from one part to the next. To see a flawless performance of players coming together at once to create a piece of music.
The view from behind a drum-kit, akin to the back of the classroom or the back of the bus, is a full view of what is happening in front of you. The pressure is on the drummer to hold it together. Messing up a drum roll does not sound good, it can derail those magic moments, or worse, the whole song. Likewise, when it comes to other players solos and stage presence, the drummer keeps track of it all — knowing when to bring it all back to main rhythm.
To reign this into an analogy, it has been my experience that good drummers make good developers. Here’s why: developers execute the product that is the output of design, creative, and business thinking of a project. For that they take a seat at back of the room and watch the creative process unfold, providing important feedback for timing and keeping the whole team informed of what can be accomplished within scope. Yet, for all the rational and rock-steadiness, developers are relatively unseen by the stakeholders, and unless an appreciation of the craft is held by the end user, the developers of an application are the last thing on the mind of its consumers. When the whole band works together, work gets done. When one person is show-boating it is a risk to the ensemble, but when a drummer goes rogue (or doesn’t fully understand the music) the whole show can be compromised.
Regardless of your relationship to playing an instrument, it can be agreed that in a team the importance of playing your role. If a guitarist feels they are the most important player and overpower the front-person, the audience suffers the consequence of not getting a clear message: what are they saying? If a bass player isn’t looking to the drummer when there is a change in the song, the result can be sloppy sounding. If a drummer isn’t keeping track of all of this, they aren’t communicating that magic beat that glues it all together.
In this analogy the client/stakeholder has the message to be delivered, and the whole team plays a part in bringing life into the project. If everyone sticks to the setlist, keeps their eyes and ears in tune with what their mates are doing, and remembers their role in the band is to create space for artistry, craft, and skill then you’ll be making the magic that people will show up for. Perhaps the drummer might even have found ways to slip in a few tricks.
How does this translate to your digital team? If you are treating designers like rock stars yet developers like concession booth vendors to support the production based on decisions made by a team of stakeholders and designers, you’re missing crucial information and your team isn’t making efficient magic. If developers aren’t involved in planning of cost, timing, and effort it’s likely that there will be surprises along the way, some of which can cost thousands of dollars — whether this impacts the client or your company bottom line.
