| Newsgroups |
gmane.comp.programming.extreme-programming |
| Message-ID |
<CALaPUVe7Oyar_px02=JXz7JsZ1Dw2Dsx5qu0L5o+tPQjMM1xUg@mail.gmail.com> |
On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 9:19 AM, Steven Gordon [email protected]
[extremeprogramming] <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 7:42 AM, Ron Jeffries [email protected]
> [extremeprogramming] <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Steven,
>>
>> On Oct 14, 2016, at 5:44 PM, Steven Gordon [email protected]
>> [extremeprogramming] <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>> Yes, well … except that ...
>>
>> Mandating is probably never a really great team-building idea, and …
>>
>> Pair programming, as marvelous as we think it is, isn’t a proven path to
>> success and in a remote situation, even if it’s as good as we think, may
>> not be close to good enough.
>>
>>
> Ron,
>
> Distribution is an even worse team-building idea. So bad an idea that it
> is very likely that the group will effectively never become an team. So
> bad an idea that it is much more likely that members of the work group will
> leave for better opportunities at inconvenient times.
>
>
Being colocated is ideal. However, people rarely consider the cost of it. I
live in Los Angeles, where driving anywhere is almost always an unpleasant
experience. I also did the traveling consultant thing for years, and that
sucks beyond words.
Being distributed presents many challenges that being in an office together
does not, but it can be managed and there are real advantages to it.
> Having a "bus number" of 1 is extremely risky for a distributed work
> group. The reason to mandate pairing is not necessarily for the
> traditional team-building and quality-improvement aspects of learning to
> pair well, but just to increase the chance that when a person leaves the
> work group, there is at least one other person who has some knowledge of
> any particular part of the code that later needs repair or extension.
>
>
The issue isn’t “bus number” per se. It’s the fact that everyone has their
own invisible office. When you work in a team room and somebody goes and
hides for hours or days working on some secret project it is very obvious
to everyone that is happening. When you work in cubes it’s far less
obvious. When every team member has their own entire world somewhere out on
the internet and you only get to see them when they want you to then it is
up to each individual to have discipline, which is fraught. However, I can
tell you right now that I am more productive at my desk next to my window
than in my cube after two hours on the 405.