Some engineers have found close collaboration (by pairing, for example) quite challenging and feel that they are more productive when working on a branch by themselves. In a team setting, this impression of higher productivity is mostly illusory.

Ultimately, the people on your team need to understand, approve of, maintain and extend your work. If you don’t come to some understanding together during development, you will have to work it out at the end in a slower process with less shared context and more rework.

Most challenges experienced in close collaboration are temporary. With practice, pairing skills will improve, technical knowledge will be shared and ways of thinking and working will be exchanged. Your team will converge on effective patterns and practices, greatly simplifying collaboration.

So take that tricky pairing session in stride. Your team will get better at it and it’ll pay off.