Mob Programming

All about remote pair programming and mobbing

Jesse Houwing

Jul 6, 2019 • 3 min read

Lisette Sutherland is a long-time remote worker with lots of experience and host of the Collaboration Superpowers Podcast. From the US, working from The Netherlands she is living the remote life. Lisette and I met (in person) at the nlscrum Meetup in Amsterdam, where she presented and where we talked about remote pairing and mobbing afterwards. In this episode of the Collaboration Superpowers Podcast, we talk about the benefits and challenges of pairing and mobbing remotely and highlights the importance of having the right attitude and tools to make it work well.

My tips for working remotely:

When you work on something as a “whole”, everyone contributes and everyone is present so we no longer depend on just one person. If there’s an issue with a certain topic, anyone on the team can step up and resolve it.
Have a conversation about what you’re trying to achieve rather than just critiquing the thing you’re being presented with.
Having a great infrastructure setup, i.e. excellent audio–headphones, quiet background, great microphone–and great video in order to pick up on people’s facial cues, is essential.
Pairing is a learning opportunity. You work with someone to improve HOW you do things, e.g. keyboard shortcuts, different tools, websites, etc…and not just for the end result,
Have a standard of how your team does things in order to avoid conflict.

More resources

Mob programming

Remote pairing

Live Share: