Discovery
We first started Mob Programming in 2011. It was either late September, or early October. I have some records about that somewhere, and hopefully I’ll find them someday. This is essentially our eighth anniversary of when we began.
Our path from where we were to where we would be wasn’t an accident, as such, but where we were to end up was not a known destination. And more wonderful to me, it is still a path we are on. Where we are is merely on the way to where we will someday be.
As I look back on that beginning one thing strikes me as being an important aspect of the approach we were following for making the improvements we felt we wanted: We didn’t know what improvements we wanted.
That is, understanding we want improvements is good. Believing we know what those improvements must be, isn’t. We clog our thinking and limit the possibilities when we think we know what those improvements should be.
Discovery is such a powerful thing.
My way of thinking: We can make it possible for us to find the improvements we need, or at least recognize them when we stumble upon them, and that is better than believing we know what those improvements must be. Sometimes this can be rather straightforward, sometimes not so much.
However, this is a bit of a paradox I suppose, and I also suppose there is a bit of a trick to it. Sometime I might gather my thoughts about what that means and share it here. For now, this is enough.