I had a long discussion with a tech lead regarding pair programming and productivity. There is an aspect of you can't change a thing but you can change your perception of a thing.

The danger is that you view it as dragging your best people down rather than strengthening the weaker ones.

There are pairs who work together very well because they naturally buddy up.

One of the things with pair programming is that it encourages the rotation of pairs so Fred and Bob may pair for certain aspects of the project but Fred and Joe pair for others. The general idea is to broaden the skillset across the team and raise the skill level.

Like all things it takes some getting used to. The tech lead's take on it was that for the first few itterations productivity will go down then it will resume normal velocity. His take on it was that it didn't improve speed of delivery per se but would improve quality and make the team more flexible. The broadening of skillsets was a boost for morale.

You do need a computer with dual keyboard & pointing device and you definitely need comfy chairs and desks that support pairing.