XpdWiki

FrontPage
RecentChanges
XtC
FindPage
PageIndex
XpApprentices

Set your name in UserPreferences

Help on editing

Referenced by
...nobody

JSPWiki v2.0.52

Edit PairingInAStrictHREnvironment

You are about to restore version 8. Click on "Save" to restore. You may also edit the page before restoring it.

We have an issue here with pair programming and the company policy of individual responsibility for network usage. The "management information systems" and "human resources" departments have a very strong desire to be able to monitor and audit every user's individual network activity, for use as evidence in any disciplinary scenario that might occur in future.

They have noticed that our XP developers all log on to the development workstations (which are reserved exclusively for pairing on development tasks) using the same ID. They find this unacceptable. Their preferred solution is for the "driver" to be logged in, and then log out to allow the "navigator" to log in each time the keyboard changes hands. We find this unacceptable, for obvious reasons.

In search of a workable compromise, I'm wondering what other teams do as I can't imagine we are the only ones with this issue. So, stories please (and not speculation :) about your experience of this issue. Thanks. --KeithB

----
In our last project the computers were all owned by a particular developer, and logged in as them. They were responsible for anything that happened on that machine security wise (including virus updates etc). --BenHogan

----
If you're not doing anything dodgy then surely it doesn't matter who's logged in? Maybe you could login in the morning, and your partner could login for the afternoon, just to show you both made it into work that day. Obviously, if you are flirting with the grey areas of "acceptable usage", or you can't trust your partner not to visit porn sites while you're in the loo, then I can see it could be an issue... --DavidPeterson

The HR argument is that ''if'' anything dodgy ever happened in future, and ''if'' it were traced to an ID of which more than one person knew the password ''then'' they would not know who to sack. YAGNI doesn't cut much ice with an administrator contemplating a wrongful dismissal tribunal. --KB

Keith, I'm unclear on what features a "workable" compromise would have for you. Have you explained your concerns to the administrators, and asked for their help in finding a solution that does not impair productivity, and hence your team, your department and ultimately the company's bottom line ? What was the reply ? -- LaurentB

Good question. A Workable compromise is one that does not interrupt the flow of pairing with the need to log out/log in, or even switch to a different profile (as it seems that would lose context in the IDE, local servers etc.), or ''even'' go through some time-recording shennanigans to provide a minute-by-minute log of who was typing when (this has been suggested), as the keyboard changes hands between pairing developers.

The team discussed this and I have proposed to the business the team consensus, which is that the one pairing id (username "extreme") is available only on the designated pairing mahcines, and is the only login (bar "administrator" and such) that is available on those machines, and then we make it part of the "XP developer" role definition that we all take joint and several responsibility for what happens ''on those machines'' and ''with that login''. This appeals to me since it is a sociological fix for a sociological problem, and is fully aligned with the values and principles of XP. I've yet to have a response.

My informal survey of other XP teams regarding this question has been illuminating. No-one is prepared to admit to having had this problem before (which amazes me). It seems that our situation is unusual in that 1) we have one "extreme" login under which  all pairing occurs, rather than a pair's work being done under one member or the other's login, and 2) we have half as many pairing machines as developers, rather than a 1:1 pool of machines, half of which are idle during pairing time. I'm most reluctant to monkey around with either of these features of the environment, as they both seem to me to foster good practice. I should add that OliBye put this environment in place and did a pretty good job, I wouldn't want to do XP in any other scenario. So I'm particularly keen that HR don't break this scheme a few weeks before I export it to the new team in Singapore!--KB

I'm leaving this company --OliBye

Surely that's an over-reaction... :-)

Here's a short reminder on what elements you have at your disposal:

----             Horizontal ruler
\\               Forced line break
[link]           Create hyperlink to 
[csharphack|http://www.csharphack.org]