Dahlia Bock

Pairing: Engaging your R-mode

In his book, Pragmatic Thinking and Learning, Andy Hunt describes the 2 different kinds of processing in your brain, L-mode or linear mode, and R-mode or rich mode. R-mode is behind intuition, problem solving and creativity while L-mode enables you to work through details and make things happen. He believes that to use your brain to its full potential we would want to unleash your R-mode and give it free reign. However, this is physically impossible because when the L-mode is active it actually blocks the R-mode from doing its job.

When pair programming, one person is typically called the driver and the other the navigator. One of the purported benefits of pairing is that it technically should speed up the solving of difficult problems since 2 heads are better than one. Hunt articulates a strategy of pairing that actually does help illustrate how it helps problem solving when done right.

An interesting way to get L-mode to work with R-mode is to use another person for the other mode. In other words, have your L-mode work with another person's R-mode or their L-mode work with your R-mode.
-- Andy Hunt.

Why this works well is because while the driver is engaged in L-mode at a particular level of details (i.e. trying to write a failing test, or write enough code to get a test passing) the navigator is able to engage in other non-verbal matters (i.e. think about the what the next test should be, or how the design of the code fits in the larger picture, or if there are any loop holes they can spot at this point, etc).

I thought this was a great visualization of the benefits of pairing.