There’s nothing worse than being stuck on a boring team assignment, where you feel like every day is a complete drag, and you feel like you’re stagnating. It doesn’t have to be like that. Engagement at work can happen when you are intellectually stimulated and are able to continually learn in your job. Sometimes that can mean finding a new team situation where you are with completely different people, working on completely different things to refresh your focus. Just having the opportunity to switch teams can bring companies tremendous retention possibilities.
Besides that, switching can help us to build a more sustainable and resilient company. If only one person maintains a critical system and then leaves, you could experience tremendous setbacks. So why not mitigate that by building in some proactive switching? Don’t fall into the “we must have stable teams” dogma that can lead you into these traps.
The pages that follow dig into the switching pattern, where one person leaves a team and then joins a team, as depicted in Figure 9-1.
Figure 9-1. The switching pattern
Switching is also when people switch pairs within a team when pair programming, as the next two stories illustrate.
Switching Pairs Within a Team
Pair programming is a classic method of spreading knowledge around a team. It’s when two software engineers work with one monitor on the ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
