The fact that this worked for me, I later came to learn, was a symptom of an underlying lack of commitment in the team. Suddenly no one wandered off into the w

The fact that this worked for me, I later came to learn, was a symptom of an underlying lack of commitment in the team. Suddenly no one wandered off into the weeds to deliberate on some inconsequential aspect of the code (this is a charitable euphemism for went off reading news sites!) The group drive to progress was greater than the individuals. As one individual's attention would wane, another would pick up the slack, keen to show they were engaged in front of their peers and that would have a self righting effect on the interest of the person who started to drift. So for a while we plundered on, amazed by the power of our new tool. Productivity was up to where it should be, quality was excellent again, the junior dev was getting a real education too. I started reflecting on why this was successful - I wondered if there was some insight I could reuse elsewhere. I slowly came to realise it was just a neat partial solution to an underlying much bigger problem. Fixing the underlying engagement problem turned out to be a journey but it was good fun. Mob programming has earned a place in my toolbox of life experience, but there's an inscription on the handle to remind me that its effectiveness could be a sign of deeper project issues. To be clear I'm not saying this is the case for the OP's team! It was just one life experience point I thought was worth sharing.