A colleague recommended this talk about Mob Programming to me:

At my current job, we try to implement Mob Programming as much as we can. But not all people accept it equally well. Some people like it more than others. I think I am one of those people who like the concept.

This talk shows how the author and his teams practice Mob Programming and brings up some reasons for why he thinks it’s beneficial.

One concept that he mentions in the talk is the concept of Question Queue Time. How long does it take to get an answer for a question that’s blocking us. If this time is too long, then we are blocked and tend to increase inventory, that is we start working on something else.

Inventory is defined as the work items we’ve started working on but that do not yet deliver value.

How can we keep psychological flow intact while working in a pair or as a mob? That’s a question that I think is crucial to making Mob Programming successful. One sentence from the talk that resonated well with me was thins one: “We enable individual flow by giving each person the safety and space to think in their own way”.