MicroPairing

This is a variant of PingPong that works well with TimeBox . The idea is that you switch pairs using TimeBox . But as long as a pair is within its timebox you pass the keyboard each time one of the following things happen:

• Driver writes a failing test.
• Driver makes a failing test pass.
• Driver refactors something (non trivial). Use common sense so you don’t switch if the refactoring does not add value. You also want both persons in the pair do some refactoring rather than having one of them doing it all if it is several refactorings taking place.
• Driver writes a passing test. You typically don’t see this but sometimes it might make some sense to add a new test that passes immediatly (because you accidently implemented too much before maybe). But try to avoid this.

Using this schema to switch driver made the TimeBox pairing more fun and involving for the persons pairing than if PingPong was used in the TimeBox (i.e. only switching after failing tests).

Reference: http://www.peterprovost.org/blog/2006/08/07/Micro-Pairing-Defined/