Known Unknowns with Henrik and William

When William first heard of mob programming, he thought of it as a joke. ”Some people do mob programming, they sit in a group and they do work together. And I was like... Why?” Of course, now he knows better. Much better, actually. So much that he's set out on a crusade together with Henrik to instigate change in their company – trying to turn mob programming into the standard way of working.

Henrik, on the other hand, usually sees himself as a joke in mob situations. 😅 ”My incentive back in 2015 was basically to learn as much as possible about everything. You thought: 'I want to be useful,' while my mindset was 'I'm useless.'”

After inviting Woody Zuill, the Godfather of mob programming, to a company conference, Henrik and William sat down to dive into the known unknowns of agile mob development.

”Design is a function, not a person.” 

That's a pretty bold statement! But what does it mean? William has approximately three thousand questions about this core principle of the Lean UX philosophy. Guided by Henrik, the self-proclaimed guru of Lean-Agile methodologies (not really... but he is in fact a boisterous advocate of Lean-Agile philosophies in general and the Lean UX principles in particular), William tries to wrap his head around a way of working that includes ”prioritizing co-creation and having informal conversations to move the design forward,” and ”collaborative research distributed across the entire team, so that everyone can have exposure to it and develop a shared understanding.”

Little did they know they were both in for a ride, deciphering the first of (hopefully) many known unknowns.

Are you curious about product development, innovation, collaboration, and modern business related philosophies and methodologies? In that case, the Known Unknowns with Henrik and William might just be the perfect fit for you. In this podcast, our hosts Henrik and William, aided by our fabulous producer Florence Davaine, will cover these fascinating areas, with different topics and guest interviews in each episode.

Henrik is a senior product owner and digital strategist; William is a senior developer and frontend evangelist. They are colleagues at one of the largest telecommunications companies in Scandinavia, Henrik operating in Stockholm Sweden, and William in Gothenburg Sweden.

Now, let us dive into the Known Unknowns together.