Re: Any advice on remote pairing?

These examples of a team deciding for themselves whether and when to pair
are all co-located.

The original question is about remote pairing for a fully distributed
team.  I can see mandating pairing (as well as the other XP practices) as a
prerequisite for taking the risk of investing in a fully distributed team.

I would not recommend such mandates for a co-located team.

On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 2:17 PM, George Dinwiddie [email protected]
[extremeprogramming] <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>
> Jay,
>
> I'm not sure about the "hold the team to their decisions" part.
>
> I worked with an org where the first team I coached, they were told to
> pair program. They rarely did and when they did, it tended to be the
> same two people pairing all the time. Retro after retro they decided
> they had to get better at pairing, but did nothing about it.
>
> The next team I coached in the same org, I cautioned against pushing
> pairing so hard. Instead, we set up the furniture to make pairing easy
> and let them know we thought pairing was a good idea. They moved in and
> out of pairing rather fluidly. Sometimes there were 3 people working at
> one computer. Sometimes there were two people working side-by-side on
> two parts of the same story, but constantly talking about what they did.
> At one point the entire team was working closely on one story that had
> turned out to be more difficult than they had imagined.
>
> My learning is to make it easy to do what you think is the right thing,
> but also make it easy for the team to change their minds. Focus them on
> the outcomes (and impacts) that are desired. Encourage them to talk
> about the activities that lead to those outcomes. And be patient.
>
> - George
>
> On 10/14/16 4:49 PM, Jay Bazuzi [email protected] [extremeprogramming] wrote:
> >
> >
> > "it should ideally be a team decision"
> >
> > This is so important.
> >
> > Managers, it's up to you to relinquish control over how the team works.
> > Let the team select a decision-making mechanism (Decider from the Core
> > Protocols is a reasonable default.) Then hold the team to their
> > decisions until they decide to change them. Don't undermine their
> > decisions, even if you disagree with them.
> >
> > Warning: If your organization recognizes/rewards performance
> > individually, this can backfire.
> >
> > -J
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> * George Dinwiddie * http://blog.gdinwiddie.com
> Software Development http://www.idiacomputing.com
> Consultant and Coach http://www.agilemaryland.org
> ----------------------------------------------------------
>
> 
>