Friday, May 28, 2010

Disconnecting from work


Disconnected color
Originally uploaded by Leonid Mamchenkov
Over the last 6 months, I've been increasingly stressed at work and in life in general. Chatting to a number of people, I think one of the causes is my ability to disconnect from work when I go home. I've got a good job, and the expectations are that I won't take work home (not sure how I'd survive if I needed to do that), although the general work environment at the moment is pretty intense.

My task for the next couple of weeks is to figure out how I can better disconnect from work. Some thoughts that I'm thinking might help:
  • Walk to and / or from work - it's been raining for the last week, so this hasn't been possible, but I have found it just a good time to get a bit of space between work and home
  • Get into a regular routine of exercise at night - expending some energy is a good thing to do, and probably means that I sleep better 
  • Go on a holiday
As an information worker, I think it's hard to disconnect - if only I could leave my work brain at the door!

What techniques do you find help you to disconnect from work, and keep stress levels at a maintainable level?

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Pair programming


Originally uploaded by ThaRainbow.
A while ago my colleague and I started work on a new project so we decided to do some pair programming, which was the first time I had worked like this. My colleague, having worked with pairing before at a previous job, took the lead. We'd been talking about using agile methodologies for a while, and thought it was a good opportunity to have a go.

At first, it was pretty awkward, as neither of us were overly good at communicating our coding plans, so we'd often wait till the other nutted out a bit of an idea, and then talked it over. We tried writing tests first, which was pretty successful, but once again, trying to figure where the other was going was pretty hard work.

We only worked together for a few days, and then got split to work on separate projects, but I would love to try  it again.

A couple of things that I found:

  • Pairing is humbling - if you don't know something, it becomes pretty obvious fast. 
  • Ideas are up for grabs - no one is going to be right all the time - you've gotta be prepared to put your ideas out there, and be prepared to talk them over and admit that you aren't always right
  • Great collaboration - although it's hard, it's a great way to learn and discuss ideas. It makes you work hard to communicate effectively - which is a great skill to generally have. 
  • Promotes openness - I find the way I like to work is on my own, but being pushed to work with others and be transparent is quite liberating, and it means you aren't the one source of all information.
How do you go working with others? If it's software, have you tried paring? If you're not a developer, what are some ways that you've been forced to work with others that have been surprisingly beneficial? 

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Google Wave

We just used Google Wave at work today, tried to get a bit of collaboration going. It was my first time giving it a go, and I think the concept is pretty good. We've got a SharePoint site up for our project, but that doesn't really allow for real-time conversations. We're trying to get a feel the gaps in our project, so we can follow them up later.

I like the idea of post it notes and a whiteboard, but Wave keeps all the conversations in one spot, although I'm not sure if technology actually takes away from the collaboration process at this point - especially when we're all in a room together.

How do you collaborate? Have you given Wave a go?

What's it all about

Like most people, I've got a fantastic ability to forget everything that goes into my brain. This will be a way for me to jot down what I've been learning, and hopefully will be of some use to someone else, but if not, that's okay.

I'll probably write about technology, programming, family and christianity.