The fact that this worked for me, I later came to learn, was a symptom of an underlying lack of commitment in the team.<p>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&#x27;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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Fixing the underlying engagement problem turned out to be a journey but it was good fun.<p>Mob programming has earned a place in my toolbox of life experience, but there&#x27;s an inscription on the handle to remind me that its effectiveness could be a sign of deeper project issues.<p>To be clear I&#x27;m not saying this is the case for the OP&#x27;s team! It was just one life experience point I thought was worth sharing.