The Mob Mentality Show

Rewriting the Rules of Mob Programming: One Tiny Step at a Time with Kevin Vicencio and Alex Bird


Listen Later

What happens when you combine daily mini-retrospectives, Test-Driven Development in absurdly small steps, and Chess Clock Mobbing? You get a radically different iteration on collaboration, continuous improvement, and extreme programming—and that’s exactly what we explore in this episode of the Mob Mentality Show with guests Kevin Vicencio and Alex Bird.


Kevin and Alex are on a team who didn’t just mob the canonical way—they experimented with variations and discovered something that seems faster, tighter, and even more collaborative in many ways. From refining how teams use retrospectives to guide daily improvements, to pioneering a new high-intensity form of teaming called “Chess Clock Mobbing,” their approach is relentless in its pursuit of learning and team flow.

In this conversation, we dig into:
- How daily retros and real-time feedback can evolve your team culture fast
- Why working in smaller TDD steps can paradoxically lead to faster results
- The mechanics and mindset behind Chess Clock Mobbing 
- “Evil TDD Ping Pong” as a way to level up test design and shared understanding
- Building a culture of trust, safety, and continuous experimentation
- Techniques for maintaining momentum, engagement, and learning in remote-first dev teams
- The power of absurdly small experiments and the compounding effect of micro-improvements

Whether you’re an Agile coach, XP practitioner, software engineer, or just curious about pushing the boundaries of collaborative development, this episode delivers deep insights, real practices, and actionable takeaways you can try with your team tomorrow.

📌 Don’t forget to like, comment, and share if this episode sparked an idea or a conversation!

Video and Show Notes: https://youtu.be/w3vvpJ3VKew  

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The Mob Mentality ShowBy The Mob Mentality Show

  • 5
  • 5
  • 5
  • 5
  • 5

5

7 ratings


More shows like The Mob Mentality Show

View all
Fresh Air by NPR

Fresh Air

38,495 Listeners

The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source by Changelog Media

The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

290 Listeners

Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,340 Listeners

The Vergecast by The Verge

The Vergecast

3,699 Listeners

Science Vs by Spotify Studios

Science Vs

12,172 Listeners

The Daily by The New York Times

The Daily

112,934 Listeners

Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats by Wes Bos & Scott Tolinski - Full Stack JavaScript Web Developers

Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

984 Listeners

REWORK by 37signals

REWORK

208 Listeners

.NET Rocks! by Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell

.NET Rocks!

243 Listeners

The Journal. by The Wall Street Journal & Spotify Studios

The Journal.

6,068 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,490 Listeners

Search Engine by PJ Vogt

Search Engine

4,455 Listeners

HBR On Leadership by Harvard Business Review

HBR On Leadership

168 Listeners

The Pragmatic Engineer by Gergely Orosz

The Pragmatic Engineer

65 Listeners

The Last Invention by Longview

The Last Invention

904 Listeners