One of my background areas of interest is the use of musical metaphors to describe agile software development. I’m a classically trained musician, and I’m always surprised by the number of other musicians I meet in the agile community. I can’t help thinking that the training and experience gained by musicians is applied by them in their software careers. I occasionally submit music and agile related sessions to conferences, but they generally get rejected because I’ve not really got my point across very well yet (e.g. Agile 2008). One common argument is that conductors are perceived to be command and control project managers.
On that note, I’ve just seen Benjamin Zander on music and passion (via Clarke Ching, via Frank Patrick). Apart from being very entertaining and powerful, he describes his role as a conductor with some choice quotes.
“He depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful”
and
“To awaken possibility in other people”
And he describes success as:
“If the eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it”
so if he’s not being successful:
“Who am I being that my players eyes are not shining”
All of which can be applied to the role of leadership with an agile software development team.