While Menlo may be most famous for its paired programming, did you know that all roles at Menlo utilize pairing for key activities and that all roles pair together as cross-functional teams at some point? We use pairing to solve a variety of problems, and if you find your team members struggling with loneliness and isolation, observe communication breakdowns, or are held hostage by a "tower of knowledge" in any role, you may want to see how pairing could help your organization.
In addition to facilitating a learning and teaching culture, the short answer to why we believe in pairing is the flexibility it affords teams; pairing gives a company the ability to scale resources up and down to meet deadlines or volume needs and, in the long-term, create a more stable and sustainable business model. Instead of denying or delaying vacation requests to keep important activities running properly, we’ll demonstrate how pairing on tasks and strategically rotating resources through project teams and departments or roles can cut down on "towers of knowledge". What are those, you ask? Team members who (if they are unavailable for any reason) can cause projects or systems to struggle or fail.
In this session, we’ll focus on how cultivating a learning environment can provide more flexibility in meeting business milestones while keeping your space buzzing with the energy of engaged employees. Tailored to your organization, we'll also help you identify places pairing could reduce the strain on key team members or project teams.
You will come away knowing how to:
This workshop is best for those struggling with business process and project bottlenecks, or those with team members who keep getting stuck doing work alone because of unique skills or knowledge.
