For this blog we are going to talk about feedback. For any field you go into you need to receive and give good feedback. In DBC we practice this by using Socrates to give anonymous feedback after a pairing session. I am going to talk about some of the pairing sessions and feedback I have received.
Lets first talk about the pairing sessions. Pairing sessions are probably one of the hardest challenges that we have to do at DBC, at least for me. My work style is very analytical, paired with trial and error. I plug stuff in and see how it work, what does what, if I change this what will happen. I do this for when I write code and for when I am debugging or trying to figure out why something isn't working. So when a problem occurs during a pairing session this is also what I do. I usually read the error message and the code again. And I just think, usually I don't talk (at least when I am by myself), but with a pair you can't do that. There is a whole other set of issues that pop up when you are paired with someone. Am I talking too much, am I to quiet, am I doing both driving and navigating, let them have a stab at the code and many more. I don't want this to seem like there are only negative aspects when pairing thats not true at all, there are more good that comes out of these sessions than bad. I really just wanted to convey how I feel during these sessions. If you can't feel it from just reading it, I get flustered. I hope anyone reading this will understand the feeling, and if you are paired with me and I am not talking for a little, know that I may just be thinking.
We talked about the bad now lets talk about the good. I love the pairing sessions because you get to discuss the challenge. That may not sound like much but it is amazing. First off you have a second set of eyes on the problem and your code. Now two people can see if they spot any problems and catch errors. Not only that but you get to see how someone else would write this code. Its great. You can see how someone would logically approach a given problem and break it down step by step. And also the teaching aspec that comes with pairings. Teaching goes both ways, they may teach you a new method or way of doing things and if you teach them it enforces what you have learned.
Now before we get into the feedback, we need to first discuss difficulties and areas of improvement based on my own perspective. Like I have said before, I can get flustered sometimes. When this happens I usually, take 30 seconds and think about the problem and break everything down step by step. What I need to improve on this is try to discuss this with my pair so I can tell them what I am thinking and get their ideas on it too. The other area I need to improve on (which I have been trying to improve on this entire time) is my communication or explanation of things. If you have paired with me, you probably had heard me say that I have difficulty explaining things. Whether you believe that or not, it is a problem that I have been working on to get better at. With code it is a little easier because I can show you what I mean. When I try just doing it verbally, I either ramble and explain every detail or I noticed that I am rambling and make it short with no detail at all. I have been trying to find a happy medium. The last issues is time boxing. Set each portion of a challenge to a given time, because I do ramble, I do want to use trial and error to see how things work. This may help us both understand the code better but it can take a long time.
Since I have already been rambling in this blog I will try to wrap this up after we talk about feedback. Most of the feedback I have received has been positive. I like that I am getting positive feedback but I wouldn't really say I feel good or bad about it. Haven't really had any feedback that been particularly helpful, the only real area of improvement was to timebox and like I said before I am working on that. Writing feedback is pretty difficult. We are supposed to use a.s.k (actionable, specific, kind) when we write our feedback. Sometimes those areas are hard to write about. I have had a few partners where I wouldn't know what to improve on. I have had plenty of pairing session, where everything went smoothly and you couldn't really point out a specific action they used to help or hurt the group. I think kind is always the easiest. I always try to be nice to people but I still have to try and leave good feedback (actionable things they can improve on), otherwise I'm not kind. Which again if you can't find a real area to give them actionable advice to improve on, what do you do here? It can be tough.