AI Pairing is like Mentoring a New Colleague
Working with AI-Assistants and -Agents in software development makes the most sense when it's done like mentoring that new colleague. I experience that a lot and gladly I also have experience with mentoring new colleagues.
Quite some try to work with AI as if it were a colleague they have been working with for years ... seeing what they see on the screen and was part of all previous discussions.
This reminds me of a very human situation I had back in the day. Some people simply communicated as if, e.g. coming back from a 1:1 appointment with the client, everyone else around them was also part of that. So only short words to do the 'hand-over' and being surprised when others said, 'No, it's not clear what you now expect to happen.'
The "My-Head-Your-Head" Problem
I opened up the topic, calling it 'Mein-Kopf-Dein-Kopf' ('my-head-your-head'), to explain that these are two completely different areas of thoughts and knowledge.
Bridging the Knowledge Gap
To align them, you need these things ...
- Awareness that this is how it is
- Thoughtful communication to close the gap for those aspects that matter at that moment
- Common 'pictures' or context to support communication in the longer term and reduce the amount of short-term context alignment
📢 Keep communicating! Your AI assistant doesn't share your mental context unless you deliberately build that bridge.