Beautiful Teams

Part V. Music

Chapter 31

Appendix A

We started this book by interviewing Tim O'Reilly because we felt that he covered a wide range of topics that we'd delve into later on. One of the things that Tim did was draw a parallel between teams of developers and how groups of musicians work together. That piqued our interest, and we wanted to dig a little deeper.

Tim: I have to say that my greatest weakness as a team leader, to be quite honest, has always been that I've always taken what's available and tried to make something of it, rather than an engineering approach—we need one of these, and one of these, and one of these—and building something out of nothing.

Jenny: That's actually my question. As you were talking, one of the things you said really resonated with me. The traditional way to handle deciding what you're going to build is getting everybody to agree on that up front. It sounds like you're more interested in the discovery process, allowing people to come to whatever truth comes from the experience. How do you reconcile that?

Tim: Well, yes and no. It's a good question. It's so paradoxical, because it sounds like when you say whatever truth comes from the experience—that sounds very California and New Age. When I say, "uncover the statue in the stone," it's really there. There's not more than one. Well, maybe there's a couple, but it's not like any old thing works. It's not ...