Pair programming is by no means "crucial". It is an approach that probably works quite well in some contexts and some teams. In other team, different approache

Pair programming is by no means "crucial". It is an approach that probably works quite well in some contexts and some teams. In other team, different approaches work. In the end what matters is that the team is highly motivated, has a strong sense of ownership and takes appropriate measures to reduce defects. How it achieves that doesn't really matter from a business POV and is more a subjective preference. In my team, we mostly achieve this through extremely thorough code reviews that dig into a lot of details and that works well for us. edit: another thing that we do is careful discussion and planning of features (where we will sit together in a small group and discuss approaches) and, for more complex things, architecture decision records (similar to RFCs) that get reviewed before they are implemented.