The whole team definitely needs to buy into the full-day pairing/mobbing. I'm definitely more on the introverted side of the scale, and I can handle things as a daily thing, but I do need a break once an hour or so, and that's the sort of thing your pair-team needs to figure out.
And another thing that's super important to talk about is the metric you mention:
> can believe that some people can be productive with the distraction of someone else constantly there, but I'm nowhere near as productive as I am working on my own.
Productivity is an interesting thing in software. What is productivity? Is it writing code fast? Is that the most important thing you can do for your company/client?
Pairing and mobbing aren't necessarily performance-oriented, but more on transfer of knowledge. If you work in a company that just wants pure churn of new code without a large amount of knowledge transfer between members, then pairing is just a gimmick and not useful to that company. This is really a case of "use the right tool for the job" - pairing and mobbing won't always make sense if it conflicts with the goals and values of the company.
And another thing that's super important to talk about is the metric you mention:
> can believe that some people can be productive with the distraction of someone else constantly there, but I'm nowhere near as productive as I am working on my own.
Productivity is an interesting thing in software. What is productivity? Is it writing code fast? Is that the most important thing you can do for your company/client?
Pairing and mobbing aren't necessarily performance-oriented, but more on transfer of knowledge. If you work in a company that just wants pure churn of new code without a large amount of knowledge transfer between members, then pairing is just a gimmick and not useful to that company. This is really a case of "use the right tool for the job" - pairing and mobbing won't always make sense if it conflicts with the goals and values of the company.