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Flanking rules as written are, as in D&D 3e and PF1, kind of dumb because the "flank" is the left or right, not behind. 5e, on the other hand, completely got rid of it, which I don't really like either.
Currently the rules read:
"A line drawn between the center of your space to the center of your ally’s space must pass through either opposite sides or opposite corners of the enemy’s space."
Suggestion - Change the rules to the following:
"A line drawn between the center of your space to the center of your ally's space passes through your opponent's space."
Then you can flank from the side, which is what flanking is. There's no logical reason why flanking should require two people to be on opposite sides. It is the most advantageous position to be in, yes, but it isn't necessary to gain a combat advantage against an opponent.
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Large+ creatures in the proposed scenario become monumentally easier to flank, which is (I think) less intuitive. For medium creatures this does make flanking just slightly easier which buffs rogue and makes it so that new players don't have to think as hard about flanking which I support.
Flanking also doesn't only mean sides. There is room in most definitions (if not an "especially:" line) for the interpretation of it meaning any two opposite sides. In this case all of our pieces will unerringly occupy rectangles of variable dimensions so I wouldn't say that this isn't intuitive.
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As a noun, sure. As a verb...
flank verb
flanked; flanking; flanks
Definition of flank (Entry 2 of 2)
transitive verb1a : to be situated at the side of
especially : to be situated on both sides of
a road flanked with linden trees
b : to place something on each side of
2 : to protect a flank of
3 : to attack or threaten the flank of (as a body of troops)
It wouldn't be too difficult to track facing for those of us using miniatures...bit of a bear for theater of the mind. Either way, I prefer the current rules and just wish flanking granted a greater bonus.
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If by "left and right" and not "behind" you mean that characters have to be on opposite sides, and can't for instance be like:
OXO
XAO
OOO
Then yes that's correct.
And I like it that way. Trying to fight people on opposite sides of you if (presumably) much harder than two people one "infront" and one "on the side".
The way this should be handled, IMO, is much like it was in PF1 where the feat Gang Up changed the position requirement for flanking.
An important thing to remember is that strictly speaking, there is no facing so left, right, in front, and behind don't really mean anything.
Also, now that most creatures don't have AoO its pretty easy to get into a flanking position.
It's also easy to walk out of flanking position as well though. Switching to a gangup style flanking would be great.
Gang-up style flanking would be near ubiquitous in combat and would probably just serve to shoot players in the foot when fighting groups of enemies (actually not the worst thing). The system works just fine here right now though. Dip rogue or dip ranger/druid and get a pet dinosaur if you're really hungry for flanking bonuses (both things in the system which are IMO needlessly nerfed by this hypothetical change).
That's why my suggestion is to make it a feat.
Not something everyone can innately do, but something that you must spend a feat on.
I'm also a fan of allowing for attacks of opportunity if you have an enemy flanked (but not generally giving everyone AoOs).