What if your beliefs—about work, people, or even yourself—are quietly holding you back? In this episode of The Mob Mentality Show, we sit down with visual thinker, author, and accidental Mob Programming anthropologist Dave Gray to unpack the power of belief, clarity, and collaboration in tech and beyond.

Dave Gray is known for Liminal Thinking—a book about understanding the invisible beliefs that shape behavior and systems. But did he know he was writing a book about us? Turns out, our Mob Programming origin story and Dave’s journey are more connected than you’d expect.

With roots as an artist, Dave brings a rare perspective to complex tech and business systems. From prior infographic posters that demystified RFID and Bluetooth when they first came out, to visual guides on inner transformation and his latest books, Dave's work simplifies the complicated and builds bridges for real understanding.

With Dave we explore:

What led Dave from agile software development to Liminal Thinking

Why most Agile transformations fail 

How to navigate confusing resistance—are people really lost, or just saying “no”?

The principles behind creating safe spaces and disrupting unhelpful routines

Visual and liminal thinking for fostering organic authentic change, not just communication tricks

Raw observation vs. narrative: how perception can distort reality

Why having lunch with someone you think is "crazy" or "stupid" might be the wisest move

The psychology behind tech resistance, organizational inertia, and true agility

We also revisit how Woody Zuill and our original Mob Programming team with Chris Lucian smashed the belief that “real work” only happens in cubicles and outside of "meetings." The mob origin story had Liminal Thinking on full display as that team reflected, questioned, and ultimately acted in defiance of broken norms. The result? A shift in how we define space, collaboration, and innovation as Dave captures in his book. 

If you work in tech, lead change, facilitate teams, or just feel stuck inside outdated ways of working, this episode is for you.

In this thought-provoking episode, we sit down with Tobias Mayer—author, coach, and longtime voice in the Agile world—to explore the journey from his early discovery of XP (Extreme Programming) in 1997 all the way to today’s debate around the death of Scrum.

Tobias shares his personal transformation from developer to Scrum Master, his resistance to early XP, and how he learned great practices from developers he managed. We unpack his reflections on Agile’s semantic drift, the role of Scrum Masters as change agents vs. bean counters, and what happens when teams do Agile without even knowing the Agile Manifesto.

🔍 Topics we dive deep into:

We also dig into mob programming (aka mobbing)—what it means, why the name matters, and whether or not new metaphors like “ensemble programming” or “teaming” (à la Amy Edmondson) better reflect how high-performing teams really work.

💡 Plus:

Tobias brings rich context from classics, theology, and history—yes, even turning a conference t-shirt into fashion—to challenge how we think about building products, teams, and businesses.

🛠️ Whether you're into XP, Scrum, Mob Programming, Lean, or simply want to rethink your metaphors and language at work, this episode delivers grounded insight, sharp critique, and fresh perspectives.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of agile thinking, real teamwork, and modern product development.

🎙️ In this episode of The Mob Mentality Show, we’re joined by Professor Ben Kovitz—a former software developer with 15 years of industry experience who went on to earn a PhD and is now teaching Computer Science at Cal Poly Humboldt. Prof Ben flips the script and brings his own real-world mob programming questions—challenges he’s faced while mobbing live with college students in the classroom.

This is not theory. These are hard-won questions from the trenches of mob programming in a learning environment, where curiosity meets complexity, and group dynamics get real.

🔍 We dive deep into 5 key challenges:

1. Deep Thought vs. Mob Timers:

2. Upfront Design or Just Start Mobbing?

3. The Overrun Navigator:

4. The Strong Opinion Navigator:

5. Mobbing with Documentation and AI:

💡 This episode is full of insights on:

Group facilitation in real-time coding

Balancing solo and group learning

Creating psychological safety in a mob

Adapting mob rules to context—not dogma

Bringing agile, XP (Extreme Programming), and education together in the mobbing practice

Video and Show Notes: https://youtu.be/nAAI5f7-vTs 

🏈 Welcome to another episode of the Mob Mentality Show, where we explore the intersection of software development, leadership, and real-world lessons—from the unexpected to the game-changing. This time, we're talking Coaching Credits—as seen in the addictive mobile football game Retro Bowl—and how they map directly to trust, influence, and leadership in software teams.

🎙️ What are Coaching Credits?

👶 Austin kicks it off with a story about trying to stay awake helping his wife with their new baby—turning to Retro Bowl as a late-night lifeline. That sparks a deep dive into what the game teaches us about:

Building trust and respect through small wins

The balance between performance and relationships

Using “credits” (influence) wisely inside and outside your team

How to upgrade your environment and talent pool over time

What happens when you try to “spend” influence you don’t actually have

👨‍💻 In Dev Culture Terms:

📘 We also tie Coaching Credits to Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits—specifically, the idea of an emotional bank account—and reflect on how these lessons align with the origin story of mob programming.

🚨 Key Questions We Explore:

Can you go into Coaching Credit “debt”?

Is quick wins and trust the only way forward when you're starting from zero?

Are you too transactional in how you lead or code?

Should someone build a Software Dev Sim game like Retro Bowl? 😅

💡 If you're a software engineer, tech lead, or engineering manager, this episode offers a fun but surprisingly deep framework for thinking about how trust, respect, and influence shape the way you build products and teams.

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

🎙️ Ever faced a product vision so massive it felt impossible to start? In this Mob Mentality Show episode, we tackle the art and science of Story Splitting — breaking down huge dreams into small, deliverable slices without losing momentum or clarity.

We explore real-world strategies, including:

Asking the hard questions like Do we really need to release everything at once?

Using SPIDR (Spike, Path, Interface, Data, Rules) to guide story splitting

Implementing Feature Flags (tools to enable/disable features without deploying new code) for flexible delivery

Creating color-coded diagrams to visualize release order and dependencies

Practicing "Yes, and" techniques to manage big customer asks without abandoning Agile values

Running post-mortem retrospectives focused on improving splitting practices

Mapping ideas with Discovery Trees (visual structures for feature evolution)

Handling the tension between Big Bang marketing launches and incremental delivery

Influencing sales and marketing teams to only sell what's already done vs. selling the future

Identifying the impact of poor story splitting on technical debt and customer trust

Differentiating splitting technical work vs. splitting user-facing features

Teaching business stakeholders the fundamentals of CD (Continuous Delivery) and good story practices implicitly vs. explicitly  

Working through known unknowns vs. unknown unknowns in product discovery

Using the Cynefin Framework (a model for navigating complexity) to decide splitting approaches

Prioritizing with cost of delay and story split diagrams to maximize value

This episode is packed with hands-on advice for developers, product managers, Agile coaches, and leaders looking to move fast without breaking things. Whether you're struggling with overwhelming customer requests, complicated roadmaps, or internal misalignment, learning how to split the impossible is key to success in Agile, Continuous Delivery, and Lean Product Development.

🎙️ What’s really happening inside your engineering org?

We explore how leaders can stop flying blind and start leading based on facts from the field.

✅ Gemba Walks (Japanese term meaning “go to the real place”):

Why your assumptions about how work gets done are probably wrong

How spending even one hour a week in the mob or at the code level changes everything

The myth of managing solely through middle managers

Why high-fidelity information beats filtered reporting

Remote-friendly adaptations: mobbing, Lean coffees, and async insight gathering

✅ Mobbing (also known as ensemble programming):

How mobbing surfaces capability gaps and builds shared understanding

Growing capabilities without enforcing rigid standards

Real stories of capability fire drills, single points of failure, and org fragility

“Low and slow” growth as the only sustainable path to true skill development?

✅ Fixing Batch Size and WIP (Work In Progress):

How large batches lead to delivery waste, delays, and bugs

The surprising power of reducing ticket size to unlock flow

Socratic coaching at stand-ups to improve team work slicing

Giving permission to drop non-priority work and focus only on what matters

✅ Building a Learning Culture:

Why capability resilience > retaining every team member forever

Using “nudges” and peer pressure the right way

Investing in bright spots without ignoring skeptics

Cultivating environments where psychological safety and growth feed off each other

What if your team didn’t need branches at all? 💥 In this episode of The Mob Mentality Show, we sit down with Ron Cohen, CTO and co-founder of Bucket, to unpack the real story behind Trunk Based Development (TBD) and the practical use of Feature Flags.

Ron stirred the pot online by challenging common assumptions around TBD — and now he’s here to clear the air.

We talk about:

What Trunk Based Development really means (Hint: It’s not just “no branches”)

Why TBD isn’t just a Git strategy, but a safety mindset often backed by solid practices like Pair Programming, Mob Programming, and TDD (Test-Driven Development)

Gitflow vs. TBD — which one sets your team up to move faster and safer?

The myth that TBD = chaos, and why short-lived branches might still play a role

How mobbing and pairing can make TBD not just possible, but powerful

We also dive deep into Feature Flags (a.k.a. Feature Toggles):

Why Ron became obsessed with them — and how they changed how his teams ship code

How to use toggles for faster releases, safer experiments, and smoother collaboration between devs, Product Owners (POs), and marketing

The difference between feature flags that require a deployment and those that don’t

The value of “dogfooding” your features in production before a full rollout

Why not all toggles are created equal — from simple UI switches to ops-level controls

How to avoid the mess of long-lived toggles and clean up after experiments (Austin, we're looking at you 😅)

Plus:

How flags can power A/B testing and internal beta programs

Fowler’s definition of Feature Flags — and how it is in action

Using toggles to build internal and external trust

Ron’s framework for different kinds of flags in different contexts

Whether you're deep into CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery), trying to tame your branching strategy, or just want to ship smarter — this episode’s packed with insights you can use immediately.

🎧 Subscribe and listen on your favorite platform:

Video and Show Notes: https://youtu.be/4PZN1yO8l2c  

What happens when a college software design course ditches traditional lectures and embraces Mob Programming?

In this episode of the Mob Mentality Show, we sit down with Ben Kovitz, a former software developer turned professor at Cal Poly Humboldt, to explore his innovative approach to teaching software design through mobbing.

✅ From Industry to Academia: Why Ben left software development to become a professor and how he discovered mob programming.

Traditional software design education can leave students unprepared for the realities of refactoring real code and collaborative development. By integrating Mob Programming, refactoring techniques, and hands-on problem-solving, Ben Kovitz is equipping the next generation of developers with practical, real-world skills and deeper design insights.

🎧 Listen on your favorite podcast platform: https://www.mobmentalityshow.com

🔔 Don’t forget to LIKE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE for more episodes on software development, coding education, and team collaboration!

Video and Show Notes: https://youtu.be/Rajvp2nrg1A  

🔥 How do you actually build great software developers? How do you debug like a pro? And what happens when XP (Extreme Programming) makes a comeback after the Scrum backlash?

Join us as Garrick West—a seasoned XP practitioner, Agile coach, and software craftsmanship advocate—dives into:

🚀 Garrick's Story: From Early Coding to XP Champion

🎯 "Building" Agile Software Developers

🐞 Debugging: The Missing Developer Superpower

🔄 Reviving XP & Software Crafting After the Scrum Backlash

💡 Don’t miss this high-energy, insight-packed conversation with Garrick West!

📢 Comment below: What’s YOUR experience with XP, Agile, or debugging challenges?

🚀 How do Game Jams accelerate learning? Can mobbing make game development more effective? In this episode of the Mob Mentality Show, we dive deep into Game Jams, Mobbing, and Game Dev Collaboration with James Herr—a full-stack developer, game dev enthusiast, and published game creator on Steam.

🔹 What Are Game Jams and why they’re a must-try for devs?

Mobbing isn’t just for software teams—it’s transforming game development, learning, and onboarding. James shares his firsthand experience mobbing with kids, running Game Jams with cross-discipline teams, and teaching mobbing roles in game dev. Whether you’re a seasoned developer, indie game creator, or just curious about Game Jams, this episode is packed with actionable insights!

📢 Want to Join the Game Dev Community?

🎧 Subscribe & Listen Now!