At Agile 2008, Gus attended a session about the Pomodoro Technique by Stefan Noteberg and has been using it since.
He’s running a session on the technique internally at Energized Work next week. Then we plan to experiment by combining it with pair programming to see if we can achieve even more effective pairing sessions and greater promiscuity. I’m imagining a pairing session being multiples of 2 Pomodoros, lasting about an hour with a 5-minute break after each Pomodoro. Potentially we could then achieve swap pairs every hour.
I’m looking forward to seeing what the hurdles will be, e.g. synchronizing the Pomodoros while allowing for 15 or 30-minute breaks every 4 Pomodoros and fitting lunch in.
3 Comments
Hi Simon,
Interesting experiment! I hope you follow up on this blog with your lessons learnt about iteration length, promiscuous pairing etc. What did work out well, what did not - and why.
I wrote about challenges with pair programming and Pomodoro Technique here: http://blog.staffannoteberg.com/challenges-with-pair-programming-and-pomodoro-technique
Good luck!
/Staffan
Hi Simon,
We, the ex-members of the team Xplayers (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CategoryXpInItaly), practiced the pomodoro technique since 2001.
If you need more information you can contact me or any member of the team.
Davide
Hi Simon (and Varvy!) the Orione team in Sourcesense (http://www.sourcesense.com/en/agile/) is still practicing the Pomodoro technique. Hardly surprising since we had the luck of hiring many former XPlayers :-)