We need to talk about pairing
Team dynamics are a big thing at Code, influenced by thinking like Susan Wheelan’s work on creating effective teams.
When you mix disciplines together in a team, collaboration becomes easier. Natural even. But not all problems need solving by a whole team at once.
Whilst most product team routines happen as a group — stand-ups, retros etc. — much of the actual work happens alone. Often, this is exactly what’s needed: specialists given the space to get in the flow. But we also see big benefits from software engineers working in pairs, for instance — this can produce better quality code, help knowledge spread across a team, and even reduce interruptions.
When we talk about collaboration, what we often mean is work that happens in pairs. Not just developers pairing on tickets, but also designers working as duos, or people from different disciplines coming together to figure new solutions out.
As most of us settle into the semi-hibernation state of working from home for the winter and beyond, it feels like the power of pairing deserves attention. It’s not just a way to do better work, or do stuff faster — it’s an opportunity for one-on-one connection; a small act of defiance against the “quiet, grinding loneliness” all of us have felt at some point. Find ways to make it happen. Make the most of the online tools you have.
It’s liberating, too, to realise that the lone creative genius is a myth. If we know that progress is born from “idea sex” — the fruit of the collective brain — we can organise ourselves accordingly.
It makes sense to form pairs where there’s some shared language, but having different perspectives helps. There needs to be some empathy and rapport, but also a bit of healthy tension — if you’re just agreeing with each other all the time, that might be a bad sign. When working in a pair, it’s also important to expose your work to a wider group early and often for feedback and critique.
If you’re a leader, you can help unlock the power of pairs — it’s on you to “identify and pair people with complementary skill sets and collaborative styles”. This also applies when facilitating workshops — pairing the right people up can make or break an activity, so knowing who’s who and paying attention to different personalities is key.
But that doesn’t mean people should find their one perfect collaborator and stick with them regardless — there’s also an argument for “many-partnered promiscuity”, where novel combinations are the norm.
However you look at it, pairing is about relationships — anything we can do to nurture these outside of “the work” is likely to pay off when we’re ready to get stuck in. Or maybe, just maybe, that’s the most important bit.
