[LRUG] Freelancers pairing with existing developers on short term projects - this common?

[Francisco Trindade (Frank)]

HI Chris,

at ThoughtWorks we do enablement projects where the objective is  
exactly what you described, helping developers to upgrade theirs  
skills through coaching/pairing/etc.., so this is a common approach to  
solve this kind of problem, and  it can be quite effective.

However, this is normally not a 1-2 days job, since it involves  
working together for enough time so that the client can understand not  
only how to do things, but also how to move forward, since you want to  
progress alone in the future.

What is also important to understand is how much delivery pressure  
will be involved in the coaching, since this will affect how much time  
you can dedicate to make things better instead of just doin them the  
same way.

I would say that normally the conditions that afect the results are:

- how much change is needed (how far is the client from where he could  
be)
- how much pressure on delivery there is at the same time
- how much the client recognizes that change is needed (which doesn't  
seem a problem in your case)

And as a last thought, like it was mentioned previously in this  
thread, you're not looking for just a good developer, but also someone  
who understand how to train/coach people.

Hope it helps.

Cheers,
Frank

Francisco Trindade
ThoughtWorks UK


On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 10:53 AM, Brent Snook<brent at fuglylogic.com>  
wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
> 2009/8/6 Chris Adams <mail at chrisadams.me.uk>:
>> Hi there,
>>
>> Is it unheard of for more experienced freelancers to be brought on  
>> for
>> a few days to pair with less experienced in-house developers, working
>> together to implement features, and transfer knowledge, instead of
>> sending the less experienced developer off for sheep-dip style rails
>> bootcamp training sessions?
>
> Definitely not unheard of. The things you learn in a training course
> will never stick as well as those you learn working one on one with
> someone else.
>
> The tricky thing is finding someone who has both the knowledge that
> you want to seed among other developers and the skills to pair
> effectively. Without the combination you run the risk of everyone
> having a bad pairing experience.
>
> A few days sounds like a very short amount of time to get the most out
> of skills transfer through pairing. If you just have a specific
> problem that you want to solve, a couple of days of their help might
> get you over that hump but to learn a decent amount from your pair you
> might need more time.
>
>> I ask because I'm working in a very small team working on a rails
>> based web app as the front end developer and community manager, with
>> an embarrassingly small budget, and I'm looking for a more  
>> experienced
>> developer to pair with for the next phase of development which is
>> beyond my own skillset.
>>
>> I'm have enough experience with Rails to be happy implementing fairly
>> simple features on apps, or using gems like hominid and paperclip,  
>> and
>> I know enough on a command line to be fairly comfortable setting up
>> linux virtual machines for running rails apps, but after losing
>> depressing amounts of time hunting bugs introduced by stupid coding
>> mistakes that would be caught by a second pair of eyes when pairing,
>> or a well thought out test suite, I know that trying to maintain and
>> develop a rails app further by myself is folly.
>
> If you're talking about learning better test design and things that
> help the long-term maintenance of your app then I'd definitely suggest
> a bit longer than a few days.
>
> It sounds like you need someone with three separate groups of skills;
> rails, test design, pairing.
>
>> In cases like this, would be the most cost-effective way to improve
>> the quality of the code in the app, to allow for more sustainable
>> development over the coming months?
>
> Having someone pair with you to do this does sound like a good way to
> go about it but it might take a bit of time. Like Luis suggested, you
> need to know exactly what you want to get out of pairing and how much
> the budget for your project will allow.
>
> Brent.
>
>> Thanks
>>
>> C
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Chris Adams
>> mob: 07974 368 229
>> tel: 0207 558 8971
>> skype: chris.d.adams
>> twitter: chris_d_adams
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-- 
--
Francisco Trindade