Mob Programming
Entire team works simultaneously on one task.
PURPOSE
Knowledge silos and dependencies on individual specialists slow teams down and jeopardize delivery capability. Mob Programming solves this problem by having the entire team work on one task simultaneously, sharing knowledge in real time. It promotes collective code ownership, accelerates the onboarding of new team members, and increases solution quality.
HOW TO USE
The entire team sits together in front of one screen. One person acts as the Driver (types) while the others serve as Navigators, giving instructions and thinking along. The Driver role rotates at regular intervals. Decisions are made in the moment, and reviews become unnecessary since all participants created the code together.
WHAT IT IS
Mob Programming is a work practice where an entire team works simultaneously on the same problem, on the same computer, at the same time. The method extends Pair Programming to the entire team and follows the principle: all the brilliant people on one problem at the same time. It was popularized by Woody Zuill and is used in agile teams worldwide.
EXAMPLE
Example: In your backend team, all knowledge about the payment interface rests with a single developer — when she is sick, everything comes to a halt. You introduce Mob Programming: the whole team works together on one computer on the payment integration, with the Driver role rotating every 15 minutes, distributing the knowledge across the entire team.