The Switch is On
Lately at work my team has had a small habit of not swapping out enough … the same pairs would sit and work on a project from beginning to completion with little or no swapping. Luckily we started breaking away from this last week, and this week alone I swapped in on several different projects.
I have to say, I loved it! Getting to swap around more lets you get to see different parts of the system being developed, and I got to provide my expertise in some areas where the existing pair was having trouble, and at the same time saw a few tricks that improved my knowledge and opened a few doors in my thinking. Sometimes you overcomplicate something, and then you see someone just take the simplest approach, you just think to yourself “Why didn’t I see that before!?”. :
I would say that one of the most underrated principals of XP is pair swapping and shared ownership … I’ve been left with a very positive feeling at the end of this week being swap so much, and at the same time have the confidence in my team members to produce such excellent work. 
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July 31st, 2006 at 1:38 am
This was a big thing to learn. I still sometimes stay to long in one pair, but it is very important to remember that a pairing is not a marraige, as my colleagues are fond of saying. Tks for reporting these positive changes.
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:11 am
My team (about 25 feet from yours) used to have the same problem. Interestingly, it took a management directive to force some of our ‘old-school’ developers to accept the promiscuous pairing. Generally, I rebel against anything that I feel is ‘mandated’. But in this case, pairing is like Artichoke-Spinach dip - It sounds unappetizing, but once somebody forces you to try, everybody realizes that it’s pretty good.