In my mob programming guidelines post, I mentioned Koans as a as a great way to get started with mobbing. Here we will look at this striped down format.

Roles

Navigator: The person dictating the logic. The only one talking. A required participant in Koans sessions and young teams. If they are stuck they are free to ask the mob for ideas, but they at first will have the say on weather a mobs idea makes it to the editor. Driver: The person at the keyboard. This person does not need any technical knowledge just willingness to type. This hat will rotate through people throughout the session. The Moberator : The facilitator of the mob. Organizes location and topics. Looks out for the welfare of the participants, keeps time. Required for beginning the mobbing process but good to have all the time. This can be a rotating hat. The Mob : Everyone else in the room. The will be present and preparing to navigate. Listening and being ready to correct or enhance the code to spec. Researching or helping the Navigator figure things out by:

Setup

Ideally there will be no tables other then a shared laptop and a screen for everyone to see. On the scree you will have your koans work along and current mobbing rules rules.

If a tableless area can not be found then a wireless keyboard and mouse is a nice thing to pass around the table.

Rotation

In a working mob session rotation will be based on time, in a koans session rotation is based on task or when ever the moberator indicates a need for rotation.

Mini Retros.

After every few tests steps it is good to stop and ask: What have we learned:

• About he code
• how we talk to each other
• What Pain Has there Been?
• How can we make it better?

Other things to remember

Cadence is a massive thing. Please remember Intent → Technical → Dictation

Bonus!

Mobbing the Koans, Slides (hit s for speaker notes)