When the entire company is working from home, pair programming is not only possible but even more valuable. If you were practicing it face to face, why not continue remote? If you weren’t, why not try? My team did a series of remote pair programming sessions in during the last month or so, and I want to share a few tips from that experience. If you’ve never tried pair programming before, here’s a good primer.
Cloud is no longer a differentiator – it’s a strategic requirement for long-term success. So says Forrester’s Benchmark Your Enterprise Cloud Adoption report, and so say our customers, 90 percent of whom choose our cloud products over hosting Server or Data Center versions on-premise (on-prem). Ten years ago, moving to the cloud was about staying ahead of the curve – no longer.
When the Coronavirus pandemic hit and the world went into lockdown, as many as one-half to one-third of workers in the United States began working from home full-time. Some people have loved it, but others have felt lonely, unproductive, and stressed while working from home with kids. As we’ve learned more about the virus and states have published reopening plans, many knowledge workers in the U.S. are ready (or being asked) to return to work.
Last night I dreamt I was back in the office for the first time. Our long communal tables in the kitchen were gone. My desk was surrounded on all sides by plexiglass – including overhead, which, for a guy my height, means stooped shoulders and a future riddled with chiropractic appointments. Nobody talked to each other except over Slack. The smell of disinfectant was inescapable. I couldn’t wait to go back home. Or at least, wake up.
The uncertainty fatigue is real. Those “how we’re handling COVID” emails from every business we’ve ever patronized have died down and many of us have settled into something resembling a routine, but most of us are still isolated from friends and family. We’re gearing up for a long summer of, yes, more uncertainty, with only the dim hope of an ambiguous return to “normal life” to cling to.
Remember that movie Groundhog Day? Where Bill Murray experiences the same day over and over and over and heartwarming hilarity ensues? Working from home can feel like a lot like that (minus the heartwarming hilarity). The hours meld together because there’s no natural divider to separate work time from personal time.
As a native New Yorker, I almost get the feeling I’ve seen this movie before. I saw 9/11 up close. I experienced the 2008 financial crash from inside Goldman Sachs. I’ve been through bomb threats, water main ruptures, and a hundred other predicaments too banal to remember distinctly. But even having worked and lead teams through all that, I still find the COVID-19 crisis challenging to navigate.
