The joys of pair presenting
There are many great reasons to pair with a colleague. I learned to pair program 25 years ago on my first Extreme Programming (XP) team. XP did not invent pair programming, but brought it closer to the mainstream. Naturally, we pair tested as well. Sharing different perspectives made testing more effective and fun.
It wasn’t long before I ventured into pair writing. Tip House agreed to co-author Testing Extreme Programming with me. Pair presenting quickly followed as Janet Gregory and I started doing conference talks and workshops together. Neither of us were confident speakers and facilitators at the time. Together we could overcome our fears and provide a good learning experience.
Pairing for diversity
In the ’00s and early ’10s, even software testing conference programs were sorely lacking in diversity, especially for keynotes and workshops (since those tend to get better compensation. Anything that gets more pay is less likely to go to non-men). Both agile and agile testing conferences grew in popularity, there were plenty of non-men attending and even doing track sessions, but not the star billing.
I met women who were keen to speak at conferences, but their proposals were always rejected. I lobbied conference organizers with lists of awesome women speakers, and was told, “They aren’t big names, they don’t sell tickets”. Deborah Preuss gave me the idea to pair with newbie speakers for my conference workshops. By co-facilitating a workshop at a well-known conference, they would be much more likely to be accepted on their own at others. I started inviting people who were trying to get into conference speaking to pair with me.
Benefits of pair presenting – for me!
This plan to help people get conference presenting opportunities worked – more on that later. I was surprised how much I got out of each pair presenting experience!
The biggest benefit to pair speaking and facilitating, for me, is that it’s just easier! I don’t have to do all the work! As with pair writing, if I get stuck on something, I just ask my pair to take a stab at it. I spend more time preparing, because I don’t want to let my pair down. I still am nervous about speaking, and I still screw up a lot. Having someone there to step in and fill a gap is priceless.
I didn’t realize how many benefits I would enjoy from pairing with new speakers (and from experienced ones, since I do that too! Generally, I let them pick the topic for the workshop. This is usually a topic I don’t know much about, so my pair brings the expertise. I get to learn a lot of new stuff in order to help create and facilitate the workshop. Looking back – this has been such a continual boost for my own career. I brought so many great ideas home to my own teams. I’ve passed them along in future workshops and classes. It helps me keep up with new trends – GenAI and LLMs, for example!
What I bring to the party is my experience with organizing workshops and tutorials, designing exercises, creating slides and handouts, making sure we have an appropriate amount of content. I’ve learned over the years from Janet how to plan, whether it’s writing a book or crafting a workshop. Set milestones, iterate, work at a sustainable pace.
A big contribution I bring is the fact that I am so lucky to often be invited to do workshops, by conference organizers who are willing to fully compensate my co-presenter too. If the conference organizers are not willing to comp co-presenters, I decline. (I made an exception when Bill Wake asked me to do a workshop with him at Agile 2019. The Agile Alliance has never comped co-presenters, despite pairing being a foundational agile practice. Bill’s a hero of mine, so I coughed up the money for airfare and hotel, and bullied the Agile Alliance into giving me a day ticket so I could co-facilitate with him).
Sometimes I get to pair again on a workshop or tutorial with the same person. In some cases, a workshop evolves into a full-day tutorial, that I and/or my pair facilitates at future conferences. And we often will pair with other people on the same workshop or tutorial, continuing to evolve and improve it.
Looking back
The person I’ve paired with most over the years is obviously Janet. Apart from that, I’ve mostly paired with non-men, and most frequently, with people that have less speaking experience than myself. My newbie co-presenters did indeed get accepted to future conferences on their own. Having a “track record” might not have been the reason, but it couldn’t hurt. Many of the former newbies soon became popular speakers. I don’t take personal credit for that, but I’m happy I could help them get experience.
Agile and testing conferences tend now to have more diversity in their speaker lineups (sadly, there are still plenty that mainly feature men). I credit TechVoices (formerly SpeakingEasy, and no longer going) with a lot of the increased diversity. (I enjoyed being a TechVoices mentor. I’m now a MASH Program mentor, though it isn’t aimed at increasing diversity).
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