Thread by @RonJeffries

There are a couple of threads going on just now about pairing, mobbing, working together, etc. Some well-reasoned, and some, well, "reasoned" comments address that some people feel more productive working "solo", and, who knows, for values of "productive", they might be.

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And certainly there could be people who are truly very uncomfortable working together with others. And there could be disabilities that make it very difficult. And people like that are valid people and deserve a chance to contribute.

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One way for people to work solo would be work designed to be truly solo. Most web site creation is probably done by solo practitioners, and quite often from home, for example. And often, contract programming work can be done solo.

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A solo programmer might be able to create and maintain a product on their own. A solo-focused individual might even be able to recruit like-minded people and create a large product among themselves, while still mostly working solo.

Those are all valid ways to work alone.

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What about a team effort, though? One thing that makes a good team good is that it works well together, sharing learning and discovery, building skill together. All the members gain from each other.

What about a solo-oriented person on such a team?

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Suppose Aubrey is on our team and likes to work solo. Perhaps they are even quite productive solo, productive in a way that really meshes with the team and company's notion of productivity. Suppose Aubrey really is less productive working together with others.

What then?

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If Aubrey has specialized skills, what happens when they go on vacation, or when they win the lottery? Suddenly the team lacks skills that it needs. That could be bad.

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Perhaps Aubrey is just an awesome programmer, highly skilled throughout. Then perhaps they'd provide more value to the organization by raising up a half-dozen other mini-Aubreys, than by working on their own.

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The rest of the team works together. When one person learns something, very quickly the others learn it as well. Aubrey doesn't have the benefit of that mutual learning, so they are likely to fall behind in understanding some aspects of what's going on.

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And there's the dilemma. When we build a team that works together, we're sharing skills, learning, becoming more productive /as a team/. A solo programmer on our team may be productive, but they may become a bottleneck, and will surely be left behind in some regards.

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We've just talked about ways that solo programmers can have productive lives working solo. And we've also begun to see that a team-focused group can be endangered and held back by solo workers.

I don't think there's a general solution.

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But I do believe that it's quite sensible for a team or company to focus its practices on growing people by sharing the work, and to hold that productivity in shared mode is more important than productivity in solo mode.

In those places, solo work just may not fit.

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