I do wonder if group flow and individual flow have more to do with different skill sets, and which path best suits the people you have, as opposed to the idea that group or individual flow is more effective.
Like, I like to whiteboard and mock up a problem in Python to wrap my brain around it. My coworker likes to mock things up in Excel. Usually when we work together, I find myself just waiting to get off the call so I can do my own whiteboarding. What makes sense to him in his Excel file doesn’t hit as much for me.
Whereas it seems like group flow uses some kind of higher level coordination process, whether it’s whatever orchestra “best practices” have been established over centuries, or people chanting together in temples, or whatever.
The question being, while group flow exists, is it simply that it requires people who like engaging in the “group flow activities”? Like we can probably find people who coincidentally like chanting, and those people might make good monks. But will my coworker and I ever work well in a pair programming environment?
Like, I like to whiteboard and mock up a problem in Python to wrap my brain around it. My coworker likes to mock things up in Excel. Usually when we work together, I find myself just waiting to get off the call so I can do my own whiteboarding. What makes sense to him in his Excel file doesn’t hit as much for me.
Whereas it seems like group flow uses some kind of higher level coordination process, whether it’s whatever orchestra “best practices” have been established over centuries, or people chanting together in temples, or whatever.
The question being, while group flow exists, is it simply that it requires people who like engaging in the “group flow activities”? Like we can probably find people who coincidentally like chanting, and those people might make good monks. But will my coworker and I ever work well in a pair programming environment?