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Webinar: Pairing – What and Why?

Month, YearTime

Please note: The audio portion of this webinar is only accessible through the telephone dial-in number that you received in your registration confirmation email.

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Arlo BelsheeFounder

Code Foundrya+caiwebinar@arlim.org

Michael MilutisDirector of Marketing

Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI)Michael_milutis@compaid.com

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About Arlo• Inspires courage.

• Does both management and highly-technical coding.

• Does both Agile and Plan-driven.

• Believes in self-discipline, flexibility, change as the only constant, punctuated continuity, and people uber alles.

• Challenges every assumption – continuously helps people learn to change.

• Best recent compliment: Company Jester. Arlo always has permission to laugh at the King.

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• CAI is a global IT outsourcing firm currently managing active engagements with over 100 Fortune 1,000 companies and government agencies around the world.

• CAI is a leader in IT Best Practices for legacy support and new development application management.

• CAI’s focus is directed toward practical implementations that track and measure the right activities in software activity management

• CAI consistently promises and delivers double digit productivity in its outsourcing and consulting engagements.

• CAI makes all of this possible through the use of:• Standard processes• Management by metrics• SLA compliance management• Detailed cost, resource, and time tracking• Capacity management • Standard estimation• A unique, metrics based methodology along with a proprietary, real time data

repository and management system (TRACER®).

About Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI)

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• Stay tuned! Your PDU code will be displayed at the conclusion of this webinar.

PDU CREDITS FOR THIS WEBINAR

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Pairing – What and Why?

1. What is Pairing?2. Why pair? Why does it work?3. Pairing in context.4. What do you do?5. What do you do as you get better?6. Advanced pairing.

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What is Pairing?

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What is Pairing?

A discussion between two people that happens in parallel with, and comments on, performing a shared activity.

• A change accelerator.• A development pace accelerator.• A learning accelerator.• A communications enhancer.• A way to build trust.

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Is this Pairing?

Yes• A coder and a customer

designing a UI together with paper prototyping.

• A coder and a tester trying to track a bug symptom back to its cause, talking about experiments to run and hypothesis to date.

• A coach helping an athlete position himself.

No• A programmer observing

and commenting on another coder’s work while the code is being written.

There is no shared activity. The two programmers are involved in different activities.

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Why Pair?• Measured results:

– 10% defect rate.– 40% improvement in lead time.– 50% WIP inventory.– Reduced risk (many types).

• This means about 80% of the features released per team-day, but at higher quality level and responsiveness.

• Why? Beginner’s Mind. Pair Net.

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What is Beginner’s Mind?

Flow• Execute a fixed mental

pattern.• No variance.• Fast and efficient.• Requires there be no

inputs.• Sustainable. Low mental

effort.• Feels good.• What computers do best.

Beginner’s Mind• Associative pattern-

matching to create and learn new patterns.

• High variance, including failures.

• Requires lots of input.• Hard. High mental effort.• Feels scary!• Requires modesty.• Computers can’t do this.

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What’s needed for Beginner’s Mind?

• Understand the context.• Don’t understand the situation at hand.• Confidence. “I think I can learn this.”• Insufficient time or calmness to apply

theory and reason.• The task must matter – it must be worth

the energy it’ll take to learn and do it.

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Pairing in Context

Allow Change• Simple Pairing

(100%)• Everyone codes• 10 min build• Retrospectives• 1 wk iterations• TDD• No legacy/inflexible

code

Build Trust• Share all tasks• 2 min build• Responsive

releases• 40 hours• Vision• Eliminate backlog• Root cause• Weekly demos• 0 bugs

Improve Continuously• Promiscuous

Pairing• 10 sec build• Continuous-form

planning• No project-based

thinking• Everyone is a manager• Maximize work not

done

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What to do – Beginning Pairing.

Pairing Practice• 100% of the people pair, esp.

including managers.• Managers pair 60-80% of their

time.• Others pair 100% of their time.• Commit every hour. Roll back if

reach 90 min.• Swap at least once per 24 hours.• No one stays with any feature

through to its completion. Ever.• Everyone has equal power to

change every piece of the system.

Other Practices• Retrospectives.• 1 week iterations, with full product

release.• 10 minute, asynchronous build.• Basic TDD.• One code base, project, and vision

per team.• Each person is on only one team.• 0 bugs.• No legacy code (defined as

anything scary or hard to change).

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++ Pairing• Management tasks become just “stuff the team has to do”.• Managers pair 100% of the time.• 2 minute, synchronous build with async backup build.• 20 minutes between commits. Roll back at 30 minutes.• Managers probably still have accountability to people outside the team, but

they delegate not just tasks but full responsibilities.• Develop team captains. They know the ropes, keep an eye out, and flag an

interrupt when they notice something. The team then resolves the interrupt.• Least qualified implementer.• Rotate pairs more often.• Rotate roles within each pair more often.

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Promiscuous Pairing• All tasks are team owned. No individual accountability, ever.• Swap pairs every 90 min. Always boot the one who’s been there longest.• Least qualified implementer.• Everyone’s a team captain.• Work tiny: commit every 5 min on average. Roll back at 10 min.• Work tiny: finish a card every 2-4 commits.• 10 sec (or less), synchronous build with async backup build.• Should feel like you’re always going at an amazing pace.• Should feel like you are on task 7.5 hours per day (5 x 90 min).• Anyone should be able to take a vacation at any time, with no notice.• When they come back, they should feel hopelessly behind the new ideas –

and feel caught up by lunchtime.• Should be able to fully ramp-up a new hire in 2-3 weeks (to 100%

capability).

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More Info• Belshee, Arlo. “Promiscuous Pairing – Embrace Inexperience”.

Experience report, Agile 2005. http://svn.arlim.org/arlo_papers/Promiscuous%20pairing/Agile%202005.

• Lacy, Mitch. “Adventures in Promiscuous Pairing: Seeking Beginner’s Mind.” Experience report, Agile 2006.

• Friedlander, Wendy, et al. “Gentle Introduction to Pairing”. Agile 2007.

• Shore, James and Warden, Shane. The Art of Agile Development. Published 2007.

• Come to Agile 2009, where I’ll talk more on the subject.

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Questions?

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Software Best Practices Conferences Around the World

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Mar. 10 Orlando, FLMar. 19 Princeton, NJMar. 31 Albany, NYApr. 9 Baton Rouge, LAApr. 21 Detroit, MIApr. 28 Tallahassee, FLMay 5 New York, NY

2009 Dates and Locations

May 14 Tampa, FLMay 19 Philadelphia, PASep. 15 Toronto, ONSep. 22 Chicago, ILSep. 29 New York, NYOct. 6 Baltimore, MDOct. 20 Philadelphia, PANov. 17 Miami, FL

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Michael MilutisDirector of Marketing

Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI)Michael_milutis@compaid.com

Arlo BelsheeFounder

Code Foundrya+caiwebinar@arlim.org