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Comment by msluyter | Hacker News Reader

I think the article is possibly conflating a couple of different things:

a) Open office plans -- for a lot of reasons I'd agree that these suck, but

b) Brainstorming -- Recent studies suggesting that it's ineffective are intruiging, but I wonder to what extent group cohesion matters? Cohesive groups where we're less worried about looking bad might be more effective.

c) Pair programming -- even though I'd definitely consider myself an introvert, pair programming doesn't rise to the level of social invasiveness that I would find problematic. In other words, most introverts dislike being around large groups, strangers, trying to chit-chat/schmooze, etc... but are often find around smaller groups of people they know and get along with. So I'd be hesitant to group pair programming with the others. OTOH, I've never had to do it all day long, so I'm not sure how that feels. Can anyone speak to that?

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I quit a good job I otherwise enjoyed because of pair programming.

Interesting. Was it the pairing per se or the people you were paired up with that didn't work for you?

>> b) Brainstorming -- Recent studies suggesting that it's ineffective are intruiging,

The passing reference in the OP didn't really put the original "Brainstorming Doesn't Really Work" article (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_...) in context. Brainstorming, as in the "let's put all the ideas out there without critiquing/debating them", was disproved in the late 50s.

In the article, a study found that adding the debating or critiquing back to the process improved creativity. You would also think that introverts would feel even more stifled in such a situation, wouldn't you?

No, I think debating/critiquing is exactly the structured type of discussion that introverts thrive at. It's the unstructured "say whatever comes to your mind" part of brainstorming that we don't do well at.

I've done it all day. It's really great when you want to, and really shitty when you don't want to. I'd say it's all about whether your devs want to naturally pair, and you shouldn't force them to work any which way.

My biggest problem with Agile is that it touts itself as THE way you should work. When you're constantly working with all different kinds of minds, it's hard to say conclusively that ONE SYSTEM will work for EVERYONE.

I will say that as a pseudo-introvert (can function in large groups but prefers small, intimate conversations most of the time), I do enjoy pair programming because I learn so much. It's best to pair an unexperienced but knowledgable dev up with a veteran to either the current project or the current problem. The combination of naive creativity with tried-and-true procedure is the best of both worlds, and truly impossible with a single person, in my opinion.

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