Metapatterns: Intermediate mobbing

Also Known As

Context

A group that has some practice mobbing together, and at least moderate familiarity with the technology they’re working with.

Purpose

Use mobbing for productivity while steadily increasing mobbing skills. Learn to communicate effectively, including everyone’s voice in the conversation. Address sources of friction while turning up the good.

How To

Mob for up to 4 hours per day, for real work. A daily learning hour is still a good idea.

Continue to practice treating each other with Kindness, Consideration, and Respect.

Apply each of the patterns often. Experiment with adding/removing them, and retro often.

As you get comfortable, run the Mob Programing Role Playing Game to learn more ways to improve the mob.

Consequences

When the driver is typing, everyone is watching the screen.

Mob producitivty will be in the same ballpark as working separately. The mob will have an advantage when dealing with ambiguity or confusing code. Some mistakes will be caught sooner. When one person has a skill that would be useful, the whole team has access to that skill. Transfer of knowledge, especially tacit knowledge, will be greatly accelerated.

The need for daily standup meetings will fade away, in proportion to the number of responsibilities in the mob.