Ensemble programming is a social software development technique where a group of people works on the same problem on the same computer at the same time. It's not typing that slows us down in our software creation, it's waiting for the right information to be available. Groups do better than individuals at that! When we get the best out of everyone into the work we are doing right now, we create a higher quality solution in the moment, and we improve skills and knowledge of everyone involved in the process. Next time we work solo, we benefit from the lessons and shared understanding only a group can generate.

With eight years of ensemble programming (and testing), Maaret Pyhäjärvi collects the wisdom of getting started with ensemble programming to allow more people to enjoy the technique that helps create better software and better creators of software. While we eventually need to adapt to our own specific flavor of ensemble programming that suites our context, this guidebook helps you get started and points you to details that can take a while to figure out.

And in case you wondered about it: ensemble programming is the community rebrand of mob programming to more inclusive language. Since 2020, ensemble programming communities globally have adopted it as a synonym to the software development technique that centers kindness, consideration and respect so that we can bring a diverse group together to create software and have a true bias to action, over worrying about the negative connotations.