This article "Agile vs Introverts" resonates with me a lot. To quote,
I had this thought: most of the “Agile” methodologies and tools are invented by extroverts ...
Introverts are not necessarily timid people, robbed of interpersonal abilities or avoiding others. Of course, for some people, this may be the case. However, it usually means that our energy reserves for interacting with others run out very quickly. We drain much faster than regular people. After such a period, we need to be alone ...
I am a big fan of the agile approach and close cooperation between the business and programmers. However, I also see problems with the agile approach.
As an introvert, I do not feel well when I have to spend a few days as an active participant in the workshops and I am forced to do pair or group programming.
From my experience, I see introverted team members feel more uncomfortable with agile. They are quieter in the daily scrum team, which does not mean they won't talk when they have problems but they are much quieter in the daily meeting. They prefer being left alone when programming. Last but not least, I see far more introverted engineers in our industry than extroverted engineers (although there is no hard evidence for this).
"Encourage them to talk" is much easier said than done. Besides, many software engineers I work with hold dear that "Talk is cheap. Show me the code."
How do I make agile process more comfortable for introverts?
PS, I guess there is probably no study to show there are more introverted engineers than extroverted engineers in software industry or introverted engineers feel more uncomfortable with agile process. But I hope we do not bury our heads in the sand and refuse to talk about/think about it (and just vote to close my question).