Enabling Testing, Design and Refactoring Practices in Remote Locations

Learning is a process of successive steps, we learn, we practice, the process cycles. It requires dedication from both teacher and student and it requires constant reinforcement. It is our contention that the best method for transferring skills like testing, refactoring and software design is through contextual learning: An ongoing program of enablement in which practices are shared in the context of the programmer´s work in response to the challenges they face. The code base forms the basis for contextual learning providing an information conduit that is location, language and culturally agnostic. We discuss some of the problems faced by our team: A greenfield, test-driven project with twenty developers split between London and India. We discuss the methods employed to better enable testing and refactoring practices across this geographical divide. We found that different practices better suited different phases of the project and different stages of learning within the team. As such these practices are mapped to the Shuhari learning model. We conclude that there is no substitute for colocation. However we found that the team´s motivation is crucial to the success of learning endeavors. Intensive one-on-one practices worked well at the start of the project, when motivation was high and there was lots of ground to cover. As the project continued, the distribution of skills became more even and more collaborative practices were better suited to promoting learning.