Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans? • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by douche » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 5:15 AM UTC

itomato wrote: post #34

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…

It's been 30 years since Peopleware was published. If we haven't figured out that giving people that have to solve hard problems peace and quiet and adequate room to lay out their materials yet, I don't think we ever will.

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

#42

Post by douche » Fri, Jul 15, 2016, 5:27 AM UTC

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.

Now just imagine if you were leveraging technology correctly, and you had your own more or less private 100 sq ft?

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

#43

Post by brianwawok » Sat, Jul 16, 2016, 2:47 AM UTC

mohsinr wrote: post #30

Headphones were invented to rescue you in open floor office ...

Unless you happen to think best in silence....

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

#44

Post by merlyn » Sun, Jul 17, 2016, 4:59 AM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #10

WorldMaker wrote: post #5

Among many reasons, open floor plans are cheap. Offices require drywall and doors and (re-)construction permits. Cubicle walls are surprisingly expensive for how cheap they look. If you are looking to cut every cost you possible can, open floor plans certainly cut costs.

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.

That is new pricing, you can get great discounts on used, although when companies rip out their cubicles, they figure they'll get good money for them, but they typically sell for pennies, much like most office equipment.

Anyway, I've only heard of companies typically ripping out their cubicles to switch to open flooxplan, or starting out on the cheap, line-em-up, see who fits your culture, ostracize the others.