Re: Re: Overstepping Qualifications [was: Practice: Pair Programming, Sex, etc]

Chris Wheeler wrote:

> Hi Kay,
>
> I can't agree with you more.
>
> Lately, I've seen some examples of XP luminaries,
> dispensing advice that really has nothing to do with
> XP, but is made to sound as though it does (from my
> perspective, at least). I have tried to disentangle
> the way I feel about getting this type of advice -
> direct or indirect - from XP luminaries.  I'm talking
> about things like what it means to live a truly
> balanced life, how to feel towards people, what should
> motivate me, etc.


Yeah, but I think that people in the the community have gotten back to 
this in a common way.  Alot of this is people work.  Sit ten programmers 
in a room who don't know how to act around each other and things usually 
go to hell.  Sit ten together that do and really cool things happen.  I 
was kind of shocked, when I started helping teams transition, to 
discover just how people-y the work was, but I kind of accepted it.  At 
the end of all of this, you have tech people who have had to deal with a 
lot of people problems.  It isn't an expertise that comes from education 
for the most part but it is something that people want to communicate.

I think the thing I always want to get back to is not how to feel about 
people but what -do- people feel about people.  And, not what should 
motivate people, but rather what does motivate people.  I think that the 
agile community is at a bit of an impasse over this right now.  Some 
people are saying that they would like to talk about how they act in 
situations so that they can offer that example to others who might want 
to know.  While I think that is valuable, I think that it also sidesteps 
frank discussions about team dynamics, personal coping styles, what do 
to when people aren't on-board, how to do quality work when you have to 
deal with micro-managers, dealing with people who say they want to play 
ball but don't, issues like the pairing thing, bad breath etc, which, 
whether we like it or not, can affect whether we work well together or 
not.  I agree with Kay that religion is out of bounds, but thankfully 
breath mints aren't. :)

Michael





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