Creating and sustaining a team is a challenge whether you are a start-up, delivering to an enterprise or in a rock band. The challenges are similar and what can we learn from successful and well-known groups and how they navigated the road from novice to expert as a group not just as individuals. I selected three groups -The Rolling Stones because they have existed for more than 50 years and are still producing music that is well received by the public. This year they released, “Hackney Diamonds” to a great reception. The Beatles began at a similar time to the Rolling Stones but ended in 1970 with their famous concert on the rooftop in London. The Sex Pistols had a short but glorious life of 2 ½ years and they have lessons for technology teams in how not to keep a team together. Three different groups, with varying longevity but all with a significant impact on modern culture.

Teams produce features then an application and then a solution. A group of musicians produce songs then record singles then produce albums (and videos or YouTube material) so although they would seem different the evolution of their work has a similar trajectory as more people get involved as you move from left to right. Technology supports the delivery of music and software so it can be done quicker and distributed more widely than in the past but the act of creation remains identical.

A success factor is that if you can keep a group together for a longer period then they can become more productive with less effort. They create their own dynamic and create habits and shortcuts to get things done quickly. A settled team can produce a feature or a prototype quickly and a group can keep on creating new music almost continuously.
Creating new teams for new pieces of work may feel like it is the right thing to, but you have the set-up costs for a new team and even introducing a new member to an existing team has a productivity hit and could upset the relationships that have developed between the existing members. Thus it makes sense to take examples to be taken from the music industry (good and bad) as it has existed since about the time of Elvis Presly and has gone through similar changes and challenges. Doing this could help us think a bit more about what we expect from an Agile team.