A common push-back to pairing or ensemble/mobbing work is that not everyone can contribute and therefore it would be a waste to have them there. “We’re building an iPhone app and our backend people can’t help”.
I’ve facilitated ensemble sessions with literally hundreds of teams over the last decade and done pairing with even more people over a much longer period. In all that time, I’ve never encountered anyone who was unable to contribute. I’ve met people who were unwilling, but nobody who was unable.
To make that statement even stronger, I’ve had people on keyboard who have never written a line of code in their lives before. I’ve had people who were experts in other technology but not the one we were working with. Yet, every one of them was able to contribute.
Sometimes it was by asking questions. Sometimes it was by helping to think through the logic. Sometimes it was direct experience with the business or the technology.
Perhaps an example would help. I was asked once to pair with someone on mainframe assembler. I’d never seen mainframe assembler before and knew almost nothing about the mainframe environment. I did, however, understand logic and control structures and the nature of the problem we were trying to solve. He was able to explain the language syntax to me and walk me through the existing logic. Within a short time, we were able to find a bug he’d been struggling to find by himself. I was able to contribute, despite not knowing the language or environment.
One of the main wastes of Lean is underutilized skills and talent. When we insist that someone can only work on a thing if they are able to work on it entirely on their own then we are demonstrating this waste. Techniques like pairing and ensemble/mobbing bring the best from everyone, and allow us all to contribute.