XP2005_MusicOfAgileActivity

Value Proposition

A significant number of members of the Agile community seem to have a musical background, leading to a hypothesis that there are commonalities between the two disciplines, both of which draw on diversely skilled individuals, collaborating to create a common vision. While this notion is purely anecdotal and subjective, it is interesting enough to explore further, and this activity session is intended to delve into those commonalities in more detail. The aim is to allow participants to:

• have fun,
• making music,
• exploring new ideas, and
• providing new insights into Agile software development

Format Description

The following items are planned:

• Clapping Music - rehearsal and performance of an existing composition, using nothing but hand claps.
• Improvisation - creation of new compositions to a theme, using simple toy instruments.
• Fishbowl discussion - sharing new or existing metaphors between music and agile software development.
• Smaller group discussions - exchanging experiences and collating results.

Is this thought perhaps overly narrow? In a 1993 interview (pdf) DonKnuth? (himself highly musical) had this to say about the differences between then current comp. sci students and those of the 1970's

In the 70s, the majority of our students were very interested in music. The first thing we'd ask them when they came in was "What instrument do you play?" We had lots of chamber groups and so on. Now almost none of the students are interested in music.

Elsewhere in the same interview he casually mentions playing anl electronic piano at MarvinMinsky's house. And so on. There's plenty of other evidence regarding correlation between musical ability and being a programmer good enough for anyone to have heard of them, and also between musicality and mathematical ability.

While it might be interesting to speculate on what changed in the population of applicants to Knuth's courses between the 70's and 90's what stands out is that in the 70's you could simply assume that the students coming into a top-flight comp sci course would be musical. Now, it would be hubris indeed to claim that the agile community is in any way identical to the community of "good programmers", while on the other hand it's hard to see how one could get to be of sufficient note in the agile community that anyone would care how musical you were without being an above-average programmer. (Let's not worry too much about how good the average programmer is these days).