Re: Any advice on remote pairing?

On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 11:57 AM, Milton Wani [email protected]
[extremeprogramming] <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>
> Adam,
>
> Thanks for that advice. It gave me a deeper feel for the idea.
>
> My problem will be working with programmers who know Agile but have never
> or very rarely heard about pair programming. I get the feeling they are
> going to hate me at first for making this a confusing experience for them
> since they are use to working alone on projects.
>
>
Some people might have a problem with mandating practices. I personally
don’t. However, I think you are taking a dangerous position by mandating a
practice that they don’t know how to do.

I think that, to be successful, you will have to get them appropriate
training so that they know what they are getting into. This probably means
consulting an expert, and probably also means paying for some travel so
that they can be together and actually pair for a while.



> I have never done pair programming myself, but after witnesses it and
> really getting my head into how it works, I can't imagine any other way of
> working. I realized while working on this project is that our education
> since we were kids never really taught us to work in teams. Sure, we had
> group projects, but training people to work on group projects rather than
> competing for marks had us avoid teamwork, shared accountability.
>
>
I think that makes it even worse. It’s one thing, as a leader, to tell
someone you want them to learn to do something because you know from
experience it will make them better. It’s another to treat them like a
guinea pig, and that’s probably how they will perceive it.

You could be honest and treat it like an experiment. That takes some of the
pressure off the team by allowing them to “try it out,” but the downside is
that they could easily fail to find it more useful than what they were
doing before. They really need someone to show them how and tell them why.


> Thanks for the latency tip. I know what you mean. There's also a sort of
> weird feeling with scratchy voices that makes the thing feel awkward. It's
> a start. I know my team will have growing pains. I know that I will need to
> invest in their technology over the next few months. But I hope they
> sincerely put their efforts into this start of remote pairing with the wish
> to make it happen. It's hard enough for the product manager (me) to insist
> from above and do the leg work to make sure things are working.
>
>
The technology is the least important part. There are even good low tech
tools, like Jeff pointed out. You have a leadership problem to solve. After
that you have a teamwork problem to solve. Then worry about the tech.