RE: [Draconet-developers] Agile Development

[Nick R. <nic...@fr...>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dra...@li...
> [mailto:dra...@li...]On Behalf Of
> David Reed
> Sent: 12 March 2004 17:37
> To: dra...@li...
> Subject: RE: [Draconet-developers] Agile Development
>
>
> Nick Robinson asked:
>
> > >I'm interested in hearing about distributed pairing techniques,
> becaus
> > >that's the one agile practice that just flat-out doesn't work for us
> -
> > >and we all work mere feet from one-another most of the day...
> > >
> >
> > Is that : it doesnt work because you all work in the office, or it
> doesnt
> > work so you all work in the office IYSWIM?
>
> Neither, really.  We have a fair amount of telecommuting and such.  The
> distributing pairing methods that I hope others may be able to elaborate
> on will give me ideas for overcoming the "I'm too anti-social and I've
> been doing this by myself for twenty years and everyone else is too
> smelly" problems.
>
> It's gotten a lot better ('cuz I've got an awesome team, a lot of whom
> have been with me for four years), but it's still pretty much
> pair-as-needed-in-a-emergency,
> pair-while-I-berate-you-for-doing-something-stupid and
> have-lots-of-mini-conferences-and-go-back-to-my-own-music-to-work.  Two
> years ago when we started down the C# adoption path and began
> implementing various random agile practices, there was a lot of the "I'm
> too clueless to do this by myself let alone embarrass myself during the
> learning process in a semi-public forum" problem to enhance the other
> endemic pairing barriers.
>

One thing I am begining to learn and respect in my exposure to agile
methods, is that rightly or wrongly, some people just cannot be an XP type
developer.  XP in particular involves a lot of humility and honesty.  I know
what you mean about the barriers people are faced with when forced to sit
with someone they may feel inferior too.  Unless that feeling is thwarted,
the way forward will be slow to non-existent.  Personally, I feel that while
XP is pretty simple to implement (parts there-of), XP is actually for a
mature, experienced community.  I have had to grow up a lot myself.  I dont
mind admitting that.

> I've attempted twice in the past two years (for amusement value - I am,
> after all, the PHB :) to force pairing, both times ended after about two
> weeks each in the lowest morale and productivity that we've seen.  It's
> all anecdotal, but so long as the productivity and quality metrics
> continue to improve, I'm inclined to let the pairing practice sleep with
> the fishes.
>

:-)

> However, if there are "remote pairing" ideas that will work from one
> cubicle to the next (allowing each person to hide in his own little cone
> of silence but still collab on the same virtual desktop), I think my
> pointy hair will start tingling the way they do just before I hatch
> another experiment...  ;)
>

There have been a few studies of virtual pairing, but I havent read them.  I
decided to try it myself.  With a good audio stream to your pair, and
reasonable response time for screen refresh, the disparate locations isnt as
great a problem as one might think.  Using skype (www.skype.com) as the
telephony IP provider, it actually sounds as if you are next to each other,
which is also a factor that allows this method to succeed.

I would jump at the chance to virtual pair on Draco.

nick.robinson
site  : www.fromconcept.co.uk
blog  : www.fromconcept.co.uk/weblog.aspx
draco : www.sourceforge.net/projects/draconet