If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. ~African Proverb
Back in 2017, I participated in a #MobProgramming workshop with Woody Zuill and Llewellyn Falco. Woody explained Mob Programming as “ All the brilliant minds working together.”
The word “together” is very important here. During the workshop, I couldn’t help but think about this from a learning perspective. Imagine a team learning , growing and working together! 🤔
Unfortunately I have seen too many organizations afflicted with the disease of busyness and constant interruption. Busy organizations want to deliver value fast with little to no time to learn. Busy organizations want to develop new skills and attract talent with limited to no budget!
If you work in a busy organization, you are not alone! This is one of the most prevalent patterns I have seen. Leaders and Managers in busy organizations expect individuals and teams to deliver value with no slack for learning. It’s an oxymoron or to use a more fancy term, cognitive dissonance!
It’s difficult (dare I say impossible) to deliver value, develop new skills or attract talent in non-learning organizations. How could an organization do that without deliberate learning?! A vicious cycle to say the least not to mention the impact on morale. Daniel Pink says that mastery is one of the aspects that motivates us. So here you have it. If you’re on a team that’s always busy and suffers from constant interruption, this might be a clue for why your team is mostly disengaged or unmotivated.
I am not a mind reader but I could picture you with a puzzled look and a thought that goes like, “Tell me something I don’t know!”. It would be a valid response, I say, as I am sure you have seen or experienced this vicious cycle in many places. You may even be experiencing it right now!
Now, let’s get back to the Mob Programming workshop. As someone who has not been a programmer in a professional setting, I was able to quickly learn how to write a few lines of code to solve a problem. While I was excited about learning how to code, I started to think about how the benefits that emerged from the mobbing session can help accelerate the learning and improve team dynamics. Here are the benefits I noticed in no particular order:
1. Focus
During the session, Woody gave us a problem to solve and we were focused on solving it. Everyone got a chance to tackle the problem at hand and building on each others’ ideas helped us to converge on a solution. Instead of arguing over which solutions would work, we were actually trying every solution and we moved quickly from divergence to convergence.
2. Empathy
As I mentioned earlier, I was able to quickly learn how to write a few lines of code to solve a problem. I don’t usually code so I got a glimpse of what it takes. I had a whole new level of empathy for those who do this on a daily basis. I have seen this with team members as well. The team started to better understand each other’s experience, perspective and empathize with each other. This usually leads to a more cohesive team.
3. Listening
When I was in the driver’s seat following the navigator’s instructions, I couldn’t help but to listen to what they were saying. It helped the whole team learn how to listen at a different level. Listening to understand and try NOT to reply.
When the team conducts a mobbing session, each team member takes turn to experiment with their ideas. Others are there to support the team member as they experiment with this new idea. By design, they are listening to understand and try NOT just to reply.
4. Observing
As an observer, I learned how see the team dynamics from a different perspective. I saw the team members trusting each others’ guidance as they explore different ideas to solve the problem.
Observers take notice of the ideas explored to solve the problem and identify more ideas to try. Observation is an active endeavor, not a passive one. Every round new observations emerge, help the team try new ideas and build on each others’ ideas. This creates a virtuous cycle for learning, improving and becoming a better team.
6. Being present
It is much easier to be present when you are doing than when you are just listening. Every team member is present mentally because at some point, each team member will get to be in the driver’s seat literally and metaphorically. So, the team is intently focused on what’s going on in the moment and as we rotate as a team, we get to try our solution and see if it works.
7. Learning by doing
To me, this is one of the most useful benefit. Most of the time, we talk about the work then we do the work and there’s usually a gap between talking about the work and doing the work. What if we eliminate that gap by doing the work as we think through the work. 🤔
During the mobbing workshop, we were working through the problem by trying different solutions rather than just talking about the solutions. So, go ahead, give mob programming a whirl and help your team learn , grow and work together and you will be surprised with the results.
