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Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

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Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#201

Post by robertoandred »

soapboxrocket wrote: post #100

So I worked in a legacy industry and they co-located a couple of teams near our biggest client. They decided to put in place an open office concept for the engineers and support staff, and gave the VPs and sales guys private offices. Especially when we first moved into the office the VPs loved to take the customers on a tour and stand at the top of the space and tell them how great this open office was. I was in a ba…

> he would sit silently with his headset on staring directly at me the whole time

Sorry, but this image is hilarious.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#203

Post by _y5hn »

dualboot wrote: post #137

The other side of this is that a very large percentage of folks in our industry seem to have social anxiety-spectrum issues. Folks without those don't seem to understand how much energy is being burned through just being out in the open and on display for all of your coworkers. It's not something I, personally, have control over. The time I've spent in "open concept" work places, I finish every day frustrated with my…

The concept of "Social anxiety" really doesn't explain it fully IMHO. The concept may even sound like a label of being wimpy, retarded or scared, which is probably not true at all - or can be made true/untrue depending on circumstances!

It's more about what kind of loads your brain are optimized for (when feeling "drained" after social exposure for a full day), being exceedingly more sensitive than most, maybe even exposing more shenanigans at earliest opportunity.

What helps is being encouraged to decide yourself, taking matters in your own hands. Making decision yourself to go into an unfamiliar environment, while having opportunity to withdraw etc. would be empowering and allow for adjustments by the individual herself. This requires a platform in the environment though, which takes time for everybody to adjust to. However such general empowerment in the environment benefits all in the end.

These are not an unfounded view or wishful thoughts in my experience, though people will have different experiences.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#204

Post by slavapestov »

ericwood wrote: post #65
bachmeier wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just to get the alternate view out there too This always comes up in these discussions. Extroverts say they prefer the open office format because they can talk to others. That's nice and all, but shouldn't you be working rather than satisfying your desire to talk to others? (The same goes for workers not in an open office not playing on HN all day.)

It's not necessarily just to idly chat with other people, but has more to do with where you get your energy. I find I'm most productive and energized when surrounded by other people. Conversation is a part of it, and the ability to collaborate on the fly is great. If I'm heads down on something it's fine to be isolated every so often, but if it's for more than a few days my energy level is sunk and my productivity ac…

Socializing is great, but maybe you can find an outlet for that outside of work?

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#205

Post by neilobremski »

It's harder to have conversations in an open office because they disturb non-participants. I find myself wasting time booking conference rooms when I could have simply popped into so-and-so's office.

I remember a long long time ago when the company I worked for did a big move and went from offices to cubes. I was young and naive and willing to try the experiment but within a month or two I regretted the change and things haven't gone back since.

I'd prefer sharing an office rather than an entire floor.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#207

Post by projektfu »

praptak wrote: post #69
LanceH wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand you're joking about Agile, but the previous holy path was waterfall, which was a hideously expensive way to get to failure.

Except that Waterfall was never really advocated: https://davesquared.net/2008/01/contentious-myth-of-waterfal... It was conceived as a straw man which was being dissed so vigorously that people started believing it was real.

Waterfall represents the default approach to managing chaos. One or two programmers with a single customer have an easy time getting a job done. When the budget gets into the millions, the project fails from having too many chefs in the kitchen, etc. So the gut reaction is to overload the front end with process. Finish requirements first, create a high level design, split it up into components that can be implemented, create a detailed design for each component, implement the design, integrate, test. I heard a ton of times as a consultant from average people, "we needed to specify more of this up front and create better designs ahead of implementation."

It doesn't work this way because software development is the process of figuring out the actual requirements and a good design. You don't have to follow an agile methodology to acheive a successful project, but you do have to have feedback loops that reduce the risk of wasted effort.

In the engineering analogy, I like to tell people that the compiler is the builder. All coding is an exercise in architecture and engineering that produces a detailed design (the code).

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#208

Post by JohnFen »

bradlys wrote: post #129
Androider wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple, when you go visit someone in a private office you can close the door and have a long conversation about your topic and really hash out the details. If you turn around and start blabbering to one of your teammates in an open office plan, everyone within hearing distance will want to murder you. If you're not aware of this, I guarantee everyone within 30 feet of you is already wearing headphones and hates you.…

Honestly, I don't see this as a thing once you get to a certain size. It used to be a thing at my workplace when we were smaller. However, now, the place is just so loud with conversation/whatever on a daily basis that people are less bothered by individual conversations near them. It's like complaining about conversation next to you when you're in a cafeteria full of it already. Everyone wears headphones at my place…

> Everyone wears headphones at my place if they're trying to focus. Last job literally handed out construction ear muffs.

This doesn't work for a lot of people, including myself. Being sonically cut off from the environment causes many people a great deal of anxiety and stress.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#209

Post by mc32 »

jackfoxy wrote: post #34

35+ years in the IT workforce here. Yep, dumbest idea ever. The vast majority of my office time was in cubicles, which are pretty good. Usually enough privacy to get things done. I did have a glassed-in private office for about a year at one company. That was productivity heaven. In retrospect I was dumb to leave that company when I did, but they started demolishing offices for cubicles about 2 years later. It is all…

Pretty much all you say I agree with.

Open offices are a psychological tool to control workers. All privacy is removed. This allows them to impose their will on you.

In exchange they get reduced productivity but they don’t seem to care about that as much as control over their staff.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#210

Post by mlochead »

One of primary points of article is that open office plans have resulted in less communication and collaboration. However, I have to wonder if it's just a timing thing, where the expansion of open office plans have also coincided with the more expanded use of tools like Slack, which has resulted in less in person collaboration overall.
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