The continuous and rapid development of new packages and tools in the R ecosystem is one of the most exciting parts of working in the R community. However, this rate of change can also make it challenging to work with a team of R coders: everyone has different levels of excitement about learning and trying out new things, as well as different preferences about “the best” way to perform certain coding tasks. This variation across a team, and a lack of clarity about how to prioritize accommodating new approaches, can cause confusion and friction among team members. This talk will overview impediments to effective R collaboration among teams. I'll then discuss two main approaches to alleviate these challenges: 1) technology to improve team workflows, and 2) behaviors to encourage collaborative culture. Whether you're cultivating a new team of R coders while attempting to determine the best ways to work together, or belong to an established team that is considering transitioning to new workflows, let's think together about how we make decisions to work together more effectively.
Bio: Kate Hertweck is a scientist and educator with seven years of experience as an R educator, including certification as an instructor (and instructor trainer) for The Carpentries. Kate has taught R to hundreds of people with diverse backgrounds and interests: from high school students to experts with Ph.D.s, researchers and medical professionals to librarians and social scientists, and for people interested in applying R to an enormous array of problems in coding and data science. Kate specializes in training biomedical scientists to use coding and reproducible computational methods to improve the reproducibility, robustness, and openness of their science.