Rob Westgeest and Vera Peeters’ Drawing Carousel workshop has been accepted for XP days benelux. It runs before close on Friday 28 November in Kapellerput, Heeze, NL. QWAN’s sessions are bookending the programme, eXtreme Vibe coding is scheduled in the opening slot on Thursday.
Drawing Carousel is, by now, a classic workshop. A hidden gem if you will. As Gil Broza suggested earlier today “the fundamentals of software product development have not changed”. We should keep paying attention to the hard things we have learnt about product development, engineering and collaboration. Working in pairs contributes to quality, a humane work environment and adaptability.
The workshop explores, through collaborative drawing, how pair programming works as a team:
The participants will experience how a Pair Programming Team works. Working in a single pair is different from working on your own: You have to articulate what you want to do, the other person (probably) has some different insights, and the result will be different from what you would have done on your own. But.. this is only half of the story: working in a Pair Programming Team has many more advantages: knowledge is spread, the team creates an own style, parallel development becomes easy, truck factor is reduced. The team creates the product! You will experience what this means.
Personally, I find working with a pair is great to question my assumptions, have that extra attention to detail and it is fun. It is one of those practices that has stood the test of time, and continues to do so. Technology may change what we pair on, but the benefits remain.
We don’t often run our full length pair programming workshop, but when we do it is fun and appears to stick with participants. The Drawing Carousel is an integral part of it. Working in pairs, whether it is on code, product or anything really, is a skill that can be improved with deliberate practice.
We are hoping to see you there, have a look at the programme.
Subscribe to our RSS feed