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Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans?

#31

Post by back_beyond »

cauterized wrote: post #28
pfarnsworth wrote: post #21

I love open floor plans. I've been working >10 years in cubicles, ~5 years in offices and >5 years in open floor plans. My favorite has been open floor plans. It's far more social and people are a lot more accessible. The other benefit of open floor plans is that people can go elsewhere if they feel like they don't want to be disturbed, so it's almost the best of both worlds.

In what companies can you go elsewhere if you don't feel like being disturbed? My experience is always that the entire office is a single noisy room and conference rooms are overbooked.

You go to a coffee shop down the street or sit on the roof and cry.

Re: Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans?

#32

Post by [deleted] »

cauterized wrote: post #28
pfarnsworth wrote: post #21

I love open floor plans. I've been working >10 years in cubicles, ~5 years in offices and >5 years in open floor plans. My favorite has been open floor plans. It's far more social and people are a lot more accessible. The other benefit of open floor plans is that people can go elsewhere if they feel like they don't want to be disturbed, so it's almost the best of both worlds.

In what companies can you go elsewhere if you don't feel like being disturbed? My experience is always that the entire office is a single noisy room and conference rooms are overbooked.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans?

#33

Post by danek »

The book "Peopleware" discusses this. https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Tom-De... Basically, open floor plans are cheap and you can maximize metrics like $/person-sqft.

Other factors:

* "everyone else does it"

* Open floor plans seem like a good idea when you first hear them; the downsides are not immediately obvious. Verbal reasoning, no matter how flawed, almost always wins.

* The decision makers tend to be blissfully unaware of the dynamics of knowledge work because their work is typically interrupt-driven. Thus, they don't see any problem putting 50 programmers in a cramped and echoey gymnasium.

* Even if the decision maker is fully aware, their boss might not agree to a higher-cost office plan. Actual dollars will almost always beat non-metrics like "compounded employee productivity" or "time and money not wasted due to mistakes caused by people operating in a distracting environment".

--Yes, in theory you could design an experiment, but that would delay the decision and probably require spending money. And the outcome would probably be misinterpreted: the open floor people will be louder and will appear to be working harder. (But are they actually more productive or are they just scrambling to fix all the bugs they created?)

Re: Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans?

#34

Post by itomato »

nibs wrote: post #4

I have noticed a strong trend away from doing actual work, towards cooperation and collaboration as a means of increasing the upside of the small amount of work that is actually done, to ensure it is worthwhile and relevant work being done. People in knowledge work create tremendous, near infinite at times, value - in a very small percentage of their work time. The majority of the work is meta-work that enables those…

That is a wonderful thing for the folks who have such a light workload.

In my experience, even operations and development teams are under this canopy. Only execs and legal have doors, and the only sanctuaries are conference spaces, which have time limits imposed.

On one hand, it is nice to "see daylight" as a member of an operations team. Not sequestered in a windowless NOC, but as things go 'serverless', so does our sanctum.

Headphones only do so much, whether on or off.

Re: Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans?

#35

Post by pasbesoin »

nimmer wrote: post #18
saasinator wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it worth sacrificing productivity to save a few bucks? How many dollars are you wasting? Even if an engineer is 1-5% less productive, compounded over a couple years you can more than pay for every cubicle.

More like 25%, have you tried focusing in a noisy environment all day long?

In my estimate, you are still way low.

In one environment I spent a number of years in, once work-at-home became more acceptable, almost universally, the most productive people -- by my prior and continuing observation -- pushed to add as much of it to their schedule as they could manage.

Even the real collaboration -- email and instant messaging, first. Phone calls where needed.

Some face-to-face meetings could be plenty productive, when properly defined and run. The far majority were not, however.

The best people hated open space. Those who loved it, you typically had to remind 5 times of everything. Or nag. Increasing your own burden, in the process.

Re: Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans?

#36

Post by CyberFonic »

Because the management doesn't!

Notice how the further up the hierarchy you go the larger and better appointed offices the managers have? They then hold their meetings in conference rooms, or better still, swanky restaurants and clubs.

And all that is based on the revenue generated by the cube farm slaves.

Re: Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans?

#37

Post by CyberFonic »

colanderman wrote: post #17
Someone1234 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone was curious, $150 for a single straight cubicle wall, up to $1,500 for an "Office Space" style fully surrounded cubicle (inc. desk), and $5,100 for four cubicles (inc. desks and shared walls). These are all generic grey looking ones, nothing fancy like tempered glass.

Isn't that peanuts compared to other employee overhead costs?

It is, but the management sees staff as a fungible resource. So why treat them well when you have a glut of people wanting to work for you? - so they like to believe.

Re: Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans?

#38

Post by CyberFonic »

pasbesoin wrote: post #35
nimmer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like 25%, have you tried focusing in a noisy environment all day long?

In my estimate, you are still way low. In one environment I spent a number of years in, once work-at-home became more acceptable, almost universally, the most productive people -- by my prior and continuing observation -- pushed to add as much of it to their schedule as they could manage. Even the real collaboration -- email and instant messaging, first. Phone calls where needed. Some face-to-face meetings could be p…

Perhaps those who like open plan offices are multi-tasking extroverts? Studies show that humans, like overloaded CPUs, loss efficiency when swapping tasks in and out and in ... responding to interrupts, inter....

Re: Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans?

#39

Post by Aeolun »

jpindar wrote: post #29
EliRivers wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's easier to go chat to people about work." That's a plus for the person who wants to chat. It's a massive negative (far outweighing the positive for the person who gets to chat right now instead of in an hour's time) for the person who was several stacks deep in mental context in chasing down some Heisenbug, or really involved in bashing out just the right code with a head full of flowing understanding. Especiall…

Sure...if you want to get things done. From what I can tell, most people prefer to goof off as much as possible.

I'm going to assume that I'm working in a company that actually rewards productive work.

Re: Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans?

#40

Post by Aeolun »

jpindar wrote: post #26
ruler88 wrote: post #23

I used to find open floor plans the most annoying thing in the world. People would pop up behind/around me unannounced. However, since we started using slack, such annoyance has declined dramatically. I wonder what will happen to office planning with better communication tools around.

The tools exist, and have for a long time. But unless you're the boss, there's little you can do to get people to use them.

Even IF you are the boss it's difficult to force people to use communication tools. We've tried a bunch of different things for our company and the only one that actually stuck was Slack (for some reason).
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