Play@Work

Thursday, February 24, 2005

The people aspect behind XP

One thing that I have realized is how important the 'people aspect' is to a team using extreme Programming.

And when 'non peopleness' prevails it is soooo sooo irritating !

Simple example. Take pairing for example. Sounds easy. But till date I have had a few pairing experiences that can be called orgasmic. These sessions have been intense with awesome design happening and good neat code getting churned out with tons of Unit tests. Other times its been an effort. Some pairs do it so so wrong. I mean is it so $^@# difficult to understand what pairing truely means ? One person driving all the time with the other as a spectator is no pairing. Its just human to understand that developers like to code, and its nice to let go of the keyboard sometimes !!

I work in a Team, and as a part of the team I feel responsible for the product that we're building. This is what drives me - "Were building it together". The belongingness, the fact that what Im doing is for myself not for someone else. We as a team move forward. Now if people dont realize this and generally try to exert their power to fit the stereotypic model of a Manager... ppphhhtttt.. there goes every thing. Suddenly I feel Im working undersome, for someone, for someone elses benefit. I no longer have the drive and I no longer strive for the perfection !! I 'work' to get things 'done'.

Small things. Big differences.

1 Comments:

  • You are right, small things do make a big difference. From my experience, most teams just jump into pair programming without really knowing how to do it effectively. Check out the work of Dr. Laurie Williams, specifically her book Pair Programming Illuminated.

    I had an experience at my company where we experimented with pair programming a few years ago. We made the mistake of pairing together two of the biggest egos in the team, who also happend to be two of the most influencial people in the team (in management's eyes). In the end our management decided to discontinue pair programming simply because these two didn't like it. You have to carefully balance personalities when forming pairs. Some may produce great results, other may just argue about designs all day long.
    Companies have to be careful to hire people who believe in the synergistic forces of teamwork and love to learn and share with their peers. They have to find those who "seek to understand before being understood."

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:25 PM  

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