How to really work as a team - from sleepy to strong pair programming

So many people think that pair programming is a boring waste of time and effort. I’m here to explain how our team made it work, and what benefits we got out of it!

I love working in a team, bouncing ideas off each other and using our combined strengths to produce something that as individuals we wouldn’t be able to come up with.

One way I like to do this is pair programming. But, when I talk to people about this, I often get told it’s a waste of time. That it’s about one person working hard whilst the other looks on, superfluous to the process. And let’s face it, most of us have experienced this when trying it out!

But I’m going to show you how we went from this sleepy type of pair programming to being super productive when working with multiple developers at one machine!

Not the one person working, one person staring into space type of pair programming, but actually providing value to each other, making the extra effort worthwhile, and bringing extra benefits to the team as a whole.