I can second the recommendation for Deep Work, but it’s not the end of the story. Richard Hamming points out in You and Your Research that the researchers who

I can second the recommendation for Deep Work, but it’s not the end of the story. Richard Hamming points out in You and Your Research that the researchers who were open to distraction tended to do a better job figuring out what to work on. In Programming as Theory Building, Peter Naur argues that the primary focus on a programming team should be developing a shared understanding of the problem space in which the program will operate. While I’ve never worked in an XP team, the description here sounds like it’s primarily focused on making sure the individual members of the team aren’t accidentally working against each other. For projects that aren’t reliant on the sort of insight that Deep Work is teaching us to generate, the team cohesion may be able to make up for the hit to individual productivity.