In the media, writing software is often portrayed as a solo endeavor. While many modern software systems begin as the work of one person, building and scaling them cannot be done by “lone wolf” developers. We need to collaborate with other developers as well as those in different roles and in concentric rings of responsibility and influence around the core product team. These socio-technical systems can be difficult to navigate.

Mob programming is a technique for collaborative software development where “all the brilliant people work on the same thing, at the same time, in the same space, and on the same computer.” I have had the opportunity to work primarily in mobs for the past six years and before that for years in pairs. I have observed that this has led to higher internal and external quality which has led to more maintainable code which has led to consistent delivery sooner. Either way, by sharing my experiences with mob programming, I’ll point to principles underlying the practices that will help you along your own collaboration journey.