I really liked what Mark Wilden had to say about Pair Programming. Personally, I don't see how Pair Programming is as valuable as teams. I prefer looking at peo

I really liked what Mark Wilden had to say about Pair Programming. Personally, I don't see how Pair Programming is as valuable as teams. I prefer looking at people working on a project as a cross-functional team. This involves everyone (the team, product owner, agile master and even sales). From a team perspective, people can work together when they need to, or run off to do research on their own and so on. It is an open experience where the Team figures out on their own how to best work together. In pair programming, developers are FORCED to work a specific way. And that might not be the best way for that developer. I think Mark would have had a much more enjoyable experience in a team centric environment where each person is able to add to the team in the way they feel most comfortable. Agile is about self managed cross-functional teams. As soon as upper management forces a team to work in a specific way, that self managed aspect disappears. I do understand all of the advantages of paired programming but think you can get those and a lot more focusing on teamwork instead of pair work. My two cents.