Lightning Jazz

According to Ben Goldhaber on LessWrong, there's a better way to run group discussions. It's called Lightning Jazz, created by Elizabeth Garrett—and it sidesteps two common failures. Traditional lightning talks feel stiff and scripted, while small group conversations often veer into territory dominated by whoever's most talkative. Lightning Jazz borrows the multiple-speaker format from lightning talks but adds the spontaneity and give-and-take of jazz improvisation. The core rule is simple: if you want to speak, you grab a pen, stand at the whiteboard, and go. A facilitator sets a broad topic and kicks things off, then speakers riff, build on, or completely contradict the last idea. Crucially, there's no question-and-answer period—if you have a question, you go to the board and present your own thought instead. The format works for groups of five to thirty-five people and can sustain for an hour or longer. Goldhaber emphasizes the role of a skilled facilitator—they set the pace, decide when threads are productive, and draw out voices that might otherwise stay quiet. The result, he suggests, is an alive, fast-moving session where insights surface that wouldn't emerge in conventional formats.

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