A social animal?

Jon Williams makes the following observation:

Agile development practices require a developer to be social. There’s a daily scrum, pair programming, end-users on team, kaizen meetings and the like, all situations which require high social interaction.

I can agree with that. He then follows with these questions:

(a) Does Agile push developers out of their comfort zone to be more social, OR (b) Did Agile come about because developers want to be more social?

My answer is neither one; for me, context is the deciding factor in my sociability. Like many software engineers, I’m an introvert. Put me in a large group of people whom I don’t know well, and I will clam up and try to escape as soon as possible. But if you put me in a small group of people I know well, I seem like the life of the party.
For this reason, I love working in an agile environment! I’m part of a small team who I know well and trust. I thoroughly enjoy interacting with my team. In fact, at my current job, I’ve taken on the role of social organizer and of helping others to form more personal relationships. My wife finds this role amusing since I’m pretty closed down in many mixed social settings with her.