footer: Kara Carrell Pair-A-Palooza @ PearConf 2019 | @KaraAJC | kara.codes slidenumbers: true
[.hide-footer] [.slidenumbers: false] ^ Collaboration happens in lots of places My favorite kind of collaboration happens in music
^ This is a photo of Alabama Shakes lead singer Brittney Howard jamming out with Paul McCartney at Lollapalooza in 2015
[.hide-footer] [.slidenumbers: false] ^ All the Remixes, Mashups, arranged covers, and live jam sessions move us all
^ This is a photo of Aerosmith and Run DMC Performing Walk This Way onstage together in 2002
[.hide-footer] [.slidenumbers: false] ^ The creative, visceral call and response that elevates each artist
^ This is a photo of Ella Fitzgerald performing at the legendary Savoy Ballroom in 1940
[.hide-footer] [.slidenumbers: false] ^ and This is a photo of Quincy Jones and Frank Sinatra working together on arrangements for Frank's album "It might as well be swing" in 1964
^ In the documentary titled Quincy, Quincy Jones talks about one of his most treasured relationships with Frank, built on collaboration, appreciation, and trust.
[.hide-footer] [.slidenumbers: false] ^ To me, one of the greatest indicators of a good place to work is if you can feel that same sense of camraderie that Frank & Quincy felt. If you can experience collaboration that makes you feel like you're both growing and learning from eachother. as well as being inspired and fueled from your interactions with folks
^ Today, I'm gonna talk to you about The Pair-A-Palooza Experience, the environment it was created in, and how its helped me jam out with my colleagues!!
^ :air-guitar:
^ Today We're going to get into How I did it, Why I did it, why YOU should do it, and HOW you can do it.
^ Before we go further, let me introduce myself
🍐 - The Story of Pair-A-Palooza 🍐 - Why YOU should run a Pair-A-Palooza 🍐 - How YOU can run a Pair-A-Palooza
^ My name is Kara Carrell, I'm a Software Developer at TableXI, a Custom Software development consultancy here in Chicago, and a Co-Organizer for Write/Speak/Code, an Organization on a mission to promote the visibility and leadership of technologists with marginalized genders through peer-led professional development. My pronouns are She/Her and I'm an aquarius, incase you were wondering :)
Communitechie Extraordinarre | International Tech Feminist
^ So Let's set the scene. Chapter ONE. It's been a little over a year now since I'd started as an apprentice, and as a new person, I wanted to know, can we kick it? is TableXI gonna be down?
^ Our apprenticeship had us working on one project, with a 4-person team. Not an easy way for me to get to know the other 40 folks I work with, and vice versa! Luckily we were encouraged to reach out and spend time learning, so what better way to do that than pairing! ^ So, my goal became, PAIR WITH ERRBODY!
^ Being myself, I love to brand things, so I knew if I was going to get to know everyone, I need to figure out:
^ how do I get folks to want to pair with me? Enter...
^ Pair-A-Palooza! (Originally called kara-pair-a-palooza, cause it was just plain catchy to say)
^ I decided to set up a two-day smorgasboard of pairing sessions and opened it up to the company. Here's the Announcement message I threw in slack
^ I used the Appointment feature in Google calendar to allow folks to choose a time that works for them and set it up on my calendar easily, and got 4 pairing sessions with fellow developers, a mobile dev, and a designer!
^ I was off to a good start, I paired with some great colleagues, learned quite a bit about myself and my pair, and soon enough i found another opoprtunity that brought my idea to a new level...
^ Chapter TWO: At TableXI we have weekly lunch & Learns where staff are encouraged to share some knowledge or passions with everyone, and I decided I would run a Lunch & Learn about how using Zines to communicate technical concepts was a great idea.
^ Some of you may be asking "What is a zine!?". A Zine is an independent "magazine" of specialized content, typically distributed by photocopying or sharing a PDF. Being the crafty person I am, I've always loved DIY things, but my love for zines truly blossomed at the Write/Speak/Code Conference a few years ago after attending this spectacular Technical Zine workshop run by Amy Wibowo.
Derived from the word "Magazine", a zine is a small press publication that is like a magazine with a twist: it is non-commercial, grassroots, independently published and captures the spirit of DIY/DIT ideologies -- An Introduction to Zines; by The Public Studio
^ While writing out my Lunch & Learn talk titled as shown, I focused on Amy Wibowo and Julia Evans as two super cool folks who make technical zines, Amy with BubbleSort Zines, and Julia with Wizard Zines, Learning from their technical zines on cryptography, and linux networking has been refreshing and affirming, and they've inspired me to make a few of my own.
^ As Amy says in her own Zine about making Technical Zines, the magic of zines is that it's less daunting than a textbook, for both the reader and writer.
^ Making a zine can help you be succint and craft a concise, but impactful story. It requires the writer to spend time with their subject matter, and get to the heart of what you want to convey, in an accessible, inclusive manner. As julia says, it's also a great way to share info about things you love.
^ I was especially excited about sharing my erasable pens and the tips I learned from Chiuki Chan about making icons and ribbons, and beautiful mistakes. I particularly love the way zine building gets you to be tactile, and creative. And honestly,
^ Who doesn't love playing with Scissors and Markers?! (it's ok if you dont, everyone is valid here!) So, I realized, If i'm going to teach folks how to make a zine...
^ maybe I should have an example of one to show at my Lunch & Learn!! so I decided to make a zine, introducing myself, and how I like to pair!
^ Introducing the PAIR-A-PALOOZA Zine. VOLUME ONE. This zine was organically created, and i'm gonna talk about what inspired each page. I had a lot of fun drawing this doodle of two curly-haired folks pairing BTW
^ First, We had just taken a 3-part series of communications workshops at TableXI as a way for folks to understand how to better give and recieve feedback, and have more vulnerable conversations with eachother, so I added a bit of that info in...
^ after that, our Tech lead had my co-apprentice and I watch a presentation by Justin Searls called "How to Program", where Justin discusses his Searls-Briggs® Type Indicator™ (A play on the Meyers-Briggs) designed as a way for developers to take some introspective time to identify how you act, feel, and think in a variety of contexts, and how that affects the software you write.
^ We took the survey and I found out I'm a FANT or a "Fearless, Aesthetic, Naive, Thorough" Programmer, which is pretty fascinating to me, so I added that in there...
My Searls-Briggs® Type Indicator™ results:
^ Next, I remembered when I went to Dev Bootcamp (REST IN POWER, Bison Represente), and we always introduced ourselves with a quirk. I thought it would fit right in with my TableXI colleagues, as one of the first things I did upon accepting my role as Apprentice was fill out a fun quiz about myself that would be sent out to all staff on my first day. so i threw some quirks in there, then.. ^ As a Woman of color with no keychains in sight with my name on it at any tourist store in all the world, and a low tolerance for being called "CAROL", or "KAREN", I also make sure to remind folks how to pronounce my name, to set the record straight upfront! BTW that's K-air-a like, "I CARE ABOUT YOU"
^ Being an educator who's taught new coders of all ages, I recalled a few of the lighthearted battles that often came up, and still do, as developers seek out community, like are you team submime or VScode, do you use tabs vs spaces, Bash or Z-shell, are you a Mac or a PC?!
^ Then, I pulled from my recent pair-a-palooza experience recalled what I found fascinating to discover when I paired with folks, like, which browser they used, or if I'd need to bring a mouse or keyboard with me, or other plugins and shortcuts that might be used while we pair. Someone on my team uses Dvorak keyboard and we learned quickly that was an unexpected barrier to us pairing!
^ I also recalled one common response when pinging folks to participate in pair-a-palooza was "What should we pair on?", so I made sure to add the things I was looking forward to learning about, which helped some folks outside of web developer roles feel more enticed to pair with me.
^ Last, I reflected on all my past pairing experiences in life, pulling out the good moments that could be made intentional if explicitly communicated, like "Acknowledge our shared work when discussing it later", or "Let's celebrate mini wins!"
^ and the bad moments that could be avoided if made explicit, like "don't work in a rush", or "don't talk to me like a child", and added those pieces in there.. so After filling it all out, I was like...
^ WOW this is too cute to only have one, and I just spent quite a bit of emotional labor curating some great themes and resources on communicating what makes a great pairing experience, for me at least, but why not use it on everyone else!? what if we had a little library of zines on everyone?! I could NOT wait to read everyone elses zines!!
^ So I set out to create a zine template to distribute at the Lunch & Learn, and made it a mission of mine to make it a company-wide project!
^ So I ran my Lunch & Learn and it got a few folks interested, but i dedicated time weeks after my lunch and learn to engage with everyone on staff, one by one, to let them know about my project, observe their responses to it, and get them to fill out a zine.
^ Some folks were really receptive to it, others nodded and jumped back into their work, the page eventually shuffling into the stack on their desk. Some folks were intimidated by the format of the zine, while others were excited to take a minute to learn how to fold it themself.
^ I built a display for my Pair-a-palooza zine project to help bring folks who were new the company up to speed on what it is, learn how to make one, hold supplies, and display the completed zines for folks to pick up and read as needed.
^ I also made a Zine library for other zines I'd brought in from my collection i accumulated at the last two Write/Speak/Code Conferences, and a few other zines i've bought and printed out.
^ We have a few remote folks as well, so I made a digital template in Google Slides for folks to be able to fill a zine out digitally.
^ I wasn't able to sell everyone on the effort of filling out the zine, but the process was teaching me a lot about my colleagues, about working at a consultancy, and the environment of TableXI. It was a good indicator to me of what I could expect if I wanted to collaborate with folks, and how I could better communicate the benefits of pairing outside of just the developer practice group. All in all, I was accomplishing what I set out to do, and that was a great feeling!
^ Finally, zines were out there, and I was able to have a window into colleagues' idyosyncracies & interests, and it was available to everyone in the office to revisit when needing to pair with someone. WOO WOO!
^ I used these zines in my second go-round with Pair-a-palooza, and this time, We expanded it to my co-apprentice and I, taking on a 10-day pairing fest! I was well on my way to the kind of exchanges that helped me understand how to riff of coworker's code, and feel their vibes, so we can make beautiful and meaningful things together
^ Chapter Three: Running my second iteration of pair-a-palooza with zines gave me alot to think about and act on. It taught me about things like access and distribution of knowledge, and I was ready to iterate and keep growing the experience for everyone. ^ we've had lots of great discussions internally about the value and effects of pairing, and how the pair-a-palooza experience contributed to our viewpoint on pairing, here's a few points that came up from staff feedback
^ So in this quote, my colleague says filling out the zine helped them understand what would be important to articulate when they pair with someone new. I really appreciated that this gave my colleagues some guidance on that.
"[Writing The Zine] helped me realize what would be important to articulate/establish when beginning to pair with someone new."
^ In this quote, my colleague mentiones that it made them actually think about the specifics of how they like to pair, and forced them to spend time reflecting on that for themself.
^ The introspection and documentation of our communication and work styles allude to a theme that our Head of Talent at the time put forth for the group, to make the implicit explicit. not only for others, but for ourselves. And i believe we all benefit from that.
"[Writing The Zine] definitely made me actually think about how I like to pair... Like the specifics of it. And I'd never really thought about it specifically before."
^ In this quote, my colleague speaks about how reading someone's zine gave them a sense of their personality, and that the format of the zine itself was appreciated.
^ Sometimes, the task of making all the conditions ripe for a super successful pairing session, especially in a consultancy, can be daunting for folks, and providing small, low-effort kinds of opportunities to make pairing successful can go a long way.
"[Reading the zine] gave me a sense of their personality and what they find important about communication. ...I appreciated the simple and consumable format."
^ In this quote, My colleage talks about how using a pairing session to do a walkthrough of a codebase was not just helpful to their pair, it was helpful to them too.
^ One of the major discussions that we've already talked a lot about here at PearConf is pairing with privilege. Bringing back the relationship between Quincy Jones and Frank Sinatra, Some might think since Frank Sinatra was in his prime, and Quincy Jones was new to the game, that it's pretty clear who was benefitting from their colaboration. But Frank definitely grew in his craft by working with Quincy, and Quincy was able to accelerate his work with his exposure to Frank's network and expertise. Their relationship flourished because they spent the time to challenge eachother to be better, by being honest in their feedback to one another, and in mutual respect for their expertise.
"[Pairing]...doing a codebase walkthrough and explaining the patterns being used and choices made was beneficial for me (even though I wrote lots of it). It helped to solidify my understanding of the codebase and spot areas for improvement."
^ This last quote from a colleague of mine talks about enjoying the opportunity to share knowledge and making the apprenticeship experience worthwile
^ There's always something you can bring to, and take away from, a pairing experience, no matter what level you're at, and having that kind of mindset is half the battle. As much as you may think that spec you're writing is boring, that's an opportunity for someone to discover new ideas or knowledge they might not experience otherwise. I don't know about you but that sounds like a party to me!
"[Pairing] was a great chance to share knowledge and help make their apprenticeship more worthwhile!"
^ Outside of the positive feedback I got, I found a few points of improvement that I'd reccomend folks consider in their implementation of oair-a-palooza. ^ For example, The digital version of the zine didn't really take off, and the completed zines weren't being scanned in, so only in-office folks could take advantage. so my next step to make pair-a-palooza more remote-friendly is scanning the printed zines, and making sure the digital zines are printed out and displayed.
^ I'm planning to run my next iteration of the pair-a-palooza experience with a larger group of staff, and in addition to the fixes on the zine itself, there's a few things I plan on trying out:
^ [Set expectations about when to read zines] In my feedback, I asked if the zine was used before pairing, and there were folks who said no. some of the feedback was that they weren't sure when to use the zines, and it wasn't really built into the normal processes of our work. it's useful to be more explicit about when to read someone's zine, and friendly reminders go a long way, so I plan on incorporating zine sharing as a part of the launch process for projects.
- Set expectations about when to read zines
^ [Craft pair styles & topics to use] Other folks expressed not really knowing what to do with someone, so that inhibited them from feeling confident in the pairing session, or from wanting to pair at all. having a few examples of what kinds of pairing can happen, like ping-pong pairing for tests, refactor pairing, or a codebase showcase, it gives more scope and guides folks through a pairing session, letting them go through the process feeling like there was an intentional goal.
- Set expectations about when to read zines
- Craft Pair styles & topics to use for pairing
^ **[launch pre-PAIR-ation checklists]**Since we're not primarily pairing in the office, We've talked a lot about helping make more guidance for what individual preparation can be done so a pair be successful during their session.
- Set expectations about when to read zines
- Craft Pair styles & topics to use for pairing
- Launch pre-PAIR-ation checklists
^ [Pair-a-palooza passport] I personally believe documentation is important, and one piece that I wasn't able to implement last time was my "pair-a-palooza passport" concept inside my zine that gave space to document who you paired with, and how it went. This is useful for finding patterns, and to be able to go back and reflect on your own.
- Set expectations about when to read zines
- Craft Pair styles & topics to use for pairing
- Launch pre-PAIR-ation checklists
- Pair-A-Palooza Passport
^ [Use a tool for connecting folks to pair] Last, everyone knows the hassle it can be to get something set on a calendar. I want to try using tools that alleviate that hassle. At TableXI we use a tool that automagically schedules 1 on 1 chats with colleagues called Everyone Onboard, which may be an option, and the Chicago Tech Diversity Initiative community uses the Donut app to do the same via slack. My goal is to try one of these tools out with our next pair-a-palooza iteration
- Set expectations about when to read zines
- Craft Pair styles & topics to use for pairing
- Launch pre-PAIR-ation checklists
- Pair-A-Palooza Passport
- Use a tool for connecting folks to pair
^ Now that you know the story of Pair-A-Palooza, we're going to get into the nitty gritty of making your own pair-a-palooza!
- It helped me communicate more about who I am
- It gave folks an easily accessible way to interact with me
- It gave me further insight into my colleague's working styles
- I got to use my creativity to discern how well I'd fit in at TableXI
^ I've covered what I set out to do when creating pair-a-palooza, and some of you aren't coming here as new apprentices like I did, but I think my story has illustrated why running one would be good for you and your company:
- Self awareness
- Accessible & inclusive place to start pairing
- Gives you something to measure your company's openness to pairing
- Makes pairing a PARTY!
^ Everyone Convinced?? Fantastic!! Now, I'm going to walk through a few steps to help you run a pair-a-palooza of your own.
- Prepare yourself (Pre-Show Checklist)
- Implement the Zine
- Run the Event (Tackle Roadblocks)
- Celebrate & Iterate!
^ Before you get started, there's a few things to ask yourself, and prepare. My first reccomendation is to lay out the current state of affairs on pairing at your company, does it happen? when it does, is it only for certain reasons? by certain folks? from there, you can set a goal for running pair-a-palooza.
- Set a purpose & topics for pairing
^ From there, make some decisions on how you'd like it to run, choose a short set of time, I started with two days where we wouldn't have much to do, it was early in our time as apprentices and made it a goal to reach out to some folks one on one. Being explicit with folks about expectations on when it's happening, when to sign up, what to do to prepare, and how to conclude the event is gonna be important.
- Set a purpose & topics for pairing
- Lay out the logistics
^ Materials and tools is going to depend on your plan. For example, if you wanted folks to be able to make their own zines, have colorful writing utensils and sissors available for use. I used frixion pens so folks can feel like they can erase, and left the zines in various stages incase folks wanted to fold the zine or just take a finished one. It's also good to designate a place for these materials and finished zines to live. Make sure to scan the zines for remote folks to access them. if you have the capacity, making copies of everyone on a team to have their own set of their colleagues zines is another way to go. either way, make a plan!
- Set a purpose & topics for pairing
- Lay out the logistics
- Gather Materials & Tools
^ Last but definitely not least, you're going to need some support of others to make this happen, and you're going to need to communicate to folks so there's not too much confusion or pushback. I got support from my Tech Lead and sponsor, from our Office manager, from colleagues who were willing to give me feedback, and folks who displayed excitement & buy-in at various stages. Find your folks!
- Set a purpose & topics for pairing
- Lay out the logistics
- Gather Materials & Tools
- People Preparation
^ Even though you do all the preparation you can, there are going to be roadblocks, here's a few that may come up, and my reccomendations for dealing with them.
^ Hopefully i've driven home the value in doing both the zine and the event, but if you need to respond to someone that considers these activities as a waste of time, remind them that contributing to colleagues better understanding themselves and their peers, especially when it comes to communicating in work situations is only going to make better, more efficient experiences, which ultimately helps the bottom line, and avoids issues in the future, which would truly be a waste of time.
- "This is a waste of time"
^ Though the material cost to get some zines printed out is low, some may consider the time for folks to pair outside of their project teams, might be too much. To this, I'd consider making sure your first try is small in scope, perhaps trying this between two teams or within one team, depending on your situation, determining the real impact on time, to use as a statistic for the next iteration. Furthermore, I'd argue that, as a consultant, the ability to share expertise gained on other projects and best practices can potentially save a lot of issues further down the road, give perspective on what implementation looks like from someone elses per-view, and it also builds camraderie and trust for folks who may be in future projects with you, lowering the ramp to team efficacy in the future. And, as i'm sure we can all attest to, the transfer of knowledge on a project or tool in a space allows for more folks to be able to jump in, if someone's out and unable to work on the project in need.
- "This is a waste of time"
- "We dont have money to implement this"
^ As I mentioned before, You might find some pushback from folks who don't really see the value in pairing with folks, either because they're "too senior" or "too junior", or doing work entirely too different from you. to that I say MYTH! Just as we see higher benefits with integrated teams, you'll see that pairing on something with a different perspective will be a refreshing experience for both parties. and that's very valuable.
- "This is a waste of time"
- "We dont have money to implement this"
- "What would I get out of pairing with folks like X?"
^ Last, I'll reiterate, if you get pushback like "woah, Kara, this pair-a-palooza is just too elaborate, why you gotta be so EXTRA", I reccomend the response be about diving into the root of what that fear is coming from. it might be fear of new things, fear of cost, fear of failure, or our best friend, imposter syndrome keeping folks from living their best lives. Make sure you've considered scope and push for that goal you've created for pair-a-palooza to accomplish. (ONE DOC VS ZINE IDEA.. be creative!)
- "This is a waste of time"
- "We dont have money to implement this"
- "What would I get out of pairing with folks like X?"
- "This seems too elaborate to implement"
^ I'd like to leave you with a list of tips if you'd like to implement this at your company:
| Event | Zine |
|---|---|
| 1: Set a time for event | 1: Distribute Zine Template(s) |
| 2: Scope purpose & topics for pairing | 2: Get Folks to fill zine out |
| 3: Set appointment slots | 3: Make space for zines to live |
| 4: Announce pair-a-palooza | 4: Set expectations for reading zines |
| 5: Pair-and-appreciate | 5: Learn from feedback & observations |
^ Again, I'm Kara Carrell, and I thank you for letting me jam out with you! I'm handing out your very own pair-a-palooza zine that I hope you fill out and share during PearConf, and take back with you to your companies & future pairing sessions
##Jam On!
-- Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. onstage together in 2002 (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage) -- Ella Fitzgerald performing at the legendary Savoy Ballroom in 1940 (Photofest) -- Paul McCartney- "Get Back" w/ Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes @ Lollapalooza 7-31-15 -- Frank Sinatra recording w/ Quincy Jones Circa June 9-12, 1964. © Frank Sinatra Estate, 1964