My engineering team I run does Mob programming, which is like Pair Programming just with more than 2 people.
It's an absolute joy. Every one of my guys says it's much more enjoyable and productive than working solo.
It's an absolute joy. Every one of my guys says it's much more enjoyable and productive than working solo.
I guess this can work only on rather small teams though. What's the cardinality of that mob of yours ?
The devs in question were experienced in pairing and happy to do it, but I pretty much always found adding more than a second head was effectively net neutral if not negative.
So I’d love to learn how to make mobbing better for the rare times it comes up. What do you have to change or be more disciplined about to make mobbing a net gain?
The issue we do have is that sometimes myself and my other senior dev end up Navigating too much, leaving our more junior developers to not contribute as much. When I catch ourselves doing that I'll just ask the other sr dev to step back for a little bit and allow the others to step up.
We use Zoom for cross discipline meetings (and nearly everyone has camera on most of the time, though there’s no explicit rule) but discord+drovio for remote pairing. Discord has been nice for the ability to drop into another pair to ask for help, or for non devs to know who is pairing and drop in as well.
One other thing I’ve noticed is that some team members play music in their headphones while pairing/mobbing. While the others can’t hear it, it’s certainly not helping our communication or focus… and it certainly feels disrespectful to me.
We thought it was going to be exhausting like you said, and one of our guys even brought up that he was very introverted and didn't know if he would be able to do this. To our surprise, the days go by faster (not just because they are shorter), we get done with more work than we did before, and although yes we are tired after working all day, we all look forward to doing it again the next day.
It's true, mobbing isn't for everyone. But for us it couldn't have worked out better.
Mob programming is a tool that can be useful on some circumstances, but I'm really not sure I'd join a company where the team is crazily enjoying it all day.
Outside of that, things have been running smoothly.
(Also, we're hiring if you are a fullstack dev)
Sounds amazing, though, maybe I can get some of this implemented in my current position.
Might be just me, or might be because English is not my native language, but the use of possessive to designate people who work with you (albeit in a position that feels like it's inferior on some org chart) always sounds patronizing to me. Does it really not in English ?
Not against you personally, I just could not keep this feeling within for longer.
/out-of-topic
As others explained, it is common usage in American English.
The bigger problem to many contemporary readers may be the (I am sure unintentional) sexism in the phrase "my guys".
Instead of "Every one of my guys says", another way to say it would be "Everyone on my team says". Or maybe even better, "My teammates all say".
Of course we have to keep in mind that these are all just late night off-the-cuff comments, so some gaffes may be expected and accepted.
Edit to address the thoughtful replies below: I think whether "guys" is gender neutral or not depends on the context and culture. Informally and in personal conversation, sure, if the "guys" in question don't mind it. Here on HN, doesn't matter too much. In formal writing or business communication, it would be something to avoid.
I generally try and be mindful of stuff like that, and were there any women on my team I wouldn't have used guys. Unfortunately covid plus unrelated personal issues caused the only woman on my team to have to resign last year. I do sincerely hope I can get some women to apply this hiring round, because diversity is important to me.
I would interpret some one saying "my guys" in this context as a sign of respect. It can be roughly understood to mean "my go-to guy." It has the connotation of a well established, high-trust, working relationship.
For example, if I needed to get my car serviced and someone was trying to pitch me different mechanics I would say, "I got a guy" to indicate that I already feel looked after.