Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

inc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 462 posts

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

#351

Post by three_seagrass »

ksd482 wrote: post #77

I am a millennial (born in '88) and I would LOVE to have a cubicle. My first job was at Cisco in San Jose, California which had cubicles. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the corporate environment with cubicles. I loved my cubicle. Like you said: just enough privacy to get things done. People would come by only if absolutely necessary otherwise they would mind their own business. Having cubicles also preven…

My experience has been the opposite, and I've been in cubes, remote, my own office, and open-offices.

Cubicles are the soul-sucking solitude that give a false sense of privacy. You're still just as interruptable except isolated from everyone else. If you see your coworkers as a problem then maybe this is nice but I never felt that way, preferring open office space to cubicles.

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

#353

Post by mook »

BoorishBears wrote: post #128
moron4hire wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're saying, but it's really more that we didn't know just how bad it could get. Cubicle farms were "soul crushing", because they came about from the same management practices that eventually led to open-floor plans: treating people as cost centers rather than people, micromanaging measurable real-estate costs at the expense of unmeasurable productivity. And while one can theoretically make good s…

You know what, if I'm going to be downvoted for an opinion, it should at least earn it: Too bad open offices are here to stay, if you were worth it you could get an office, maybe invest in some good headphones :)

(replying to the pre-edit comment, as I think that can be insightful)

I do agree that open office looks a lot less depressing than a cubicle farm; being able to see a large area tends to be more pleasing than lots of obstructions. However, actually having the same amount of people (or, usually, more people because that's why they have open offices in the first place) can cause issues due to the more intense noise and distractions. But that wouldn't be visible in a quick visit; it would need to come out over a prolonged period of working in that environment. And somehow all the decision makers never actually work in the middle of the open plan office…

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

#354

Post by veeralpatel979 »

xp84 wrote: post #349
veeralpatel979 wrote: post #330

I wonder if ease of setup has something to do with the popularity of open offices, especially for startups? 1. After choosing an office setup, a company is not likely to change it unless it needs to 2. You can set up an open office in an afternoon. Buy some desks and chairs from Ikea and let people arrange them 3. On the other hand, I wouldn't know where to start in order to procure cubicles/private offices. 4. Also,…

^- THIS. And to be fair, it's probably nearly always the right decision for a startup that has no idea if it will even be able to put out its first product. Sinking like $300k into an office build-out of any kind before you hire your first key staff would be nuts. So a startup pretty much automatically is gonna start out looking like what you described in #2. And the inertia keeps them with that setup even after they…

If I build a startup that gets to the stage where I'm hiring people, I'm going to consider providing offices (private or shared) for my engineers, as a way to attract talent.

I'm surprised more employers aren't doing this. Yes it costs more but (1) you get a lot more output out of your employees and (2) it helps you hire and retain good employees.

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

#355

Post by commandlinefan »

monkeynotes wrote: post #7

I am not sure why employees would message and email more if they can just turn their chair around to chat about something they are working on. Does anyone have experience of this? I have worked in open plan offices since 1999 and I've never experienced productivity problems. If anything I'd expect working in a cube would lead to more time wasted cruising websites since your screen is more obscured. I dunno, I've only…

> if they can just turn their chair around

By definition, there can only be max four people (usually less) you can just “turn your chair around and talk to” without shouting over somebody else’s head - or just getting up and walking over to where they are just as you would if people had cubes. Your insinuation that this is possible or meaningful is so obviously disingenuous that I’m having a hard time you’re making it in good faith: if you’d tried it for even a few hours you’d be able to see the flaw in it.

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

#356

Post by anthonypasq »

lliamander wrote: post #212

One of the biggest things I miss not being in a cubicle is that I no longer have my own whiteboard. Without whiteboard space, you hamstring a developers ability to think and to communicate with others.

there is this revolutionary technology called paper that still exists

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

#357

Post by mirimir »

BoorishBears wrote: post #128
moron4hire wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're saying, but it's really more that we didn't know just how bad it could get. Cubicle farms were "soul crushing", because they came about from the same management practices that eventually led to open-floor plans: treating people as cost centers rather than people, micromanaging measurable real-estate costs at the expense of unmeasurable productivity. And while one can theoretically make good s…

You know what, if I'm going to be downvoted for an opinion, it should at least earn it: Too bad open offices are here to stay, if you were worth it you could get an office, maybe invest in some good headphones :)

Well, that's exactly the point, in a way.

Sitting in an open-plan office lets you know that you're not "worth it". That you're not respected. And you're way too distracted to actually get much done. So you zone out with music, watch YouTube, hang out on HN, etc.

And then, because you're not productive, you're condemned to an open-plan future :(

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

#358

Post by GuB-42 »

LanceH wrote: post #44
agentultra wrote: post #21

More than Agile? Snark aside, I have a personal office and I love it. I don't like to listen to constant noise/music to cancel out the other noise/music. I like being able to have private calls without all of the noise in the background. If I'm working on something particularly difficult I like closing my door and having peace and quiet. I also enjoy the sense of ownership and prestige. It's nice feeling like I matte…

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

The problem is neither agile nor waterfall.

The problem is applying a methodology because it is the current fad.

Management should be adapted to the conditions: the scale of the project, the nature and availability of the customer, the personalities and roles of the team members,... Sometimes, the best results looks like waterfall, sometimes it looks like agile, sometimes it looks like there is no methodology at all. When things "just work" you don't realize there is a process, that's the sign of a manager doing a good job. The worst case is usually when a manager follows a methodology "by the book", except for the parts that don't fit or are "too expensive". Not realizing that pieces go together and changing one will affect the others.

The same could be said of design patterns in programming. They are good to know, but they are just guidelines. Using a design pattern for the sake of it usually leads to terrible, often bloated code.

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

#359

Post by JohnFen »

svachalek wrote: post #307
JohnFen wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was conceived as a straw man which was being dissed so vigorously that people started believing it was real. So much this. I've been in the industry for about 30 years, and I've never once seen a place that used a methodology that could be called "waterfall" as described by many agile proponents.

I started out in defense and it was standard practice there, especially in regards to contract management. I had to take a formal training class in the process. It was also the only process I learned in college ('94) and was strongly advocated in my classes. Most attacks from the agile community probably are coming from a place of never having actually seen or practiced the real thing however. For example it does flo…

> Most attacks from the agile community probably are coming from a place of never having actually seen or practiced the real thing

This is rather my point. In "waterfall" shops I've worked at, the way it has never worked is that the application is completely designed up front, then implemented. The reality is that there has always been iteration involved, and there has always been refining and modification of design, and etc.

The only thing (aside from "ceremonies") I see agile bringing that didn't exist in my experiences with "waterfall" is the notion of bringing the customer in as a constant part of the development process -- which is a welcome addition.

The rest of Agile that I see can be thought of as refinements to waterfall, not as something entirely different.

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

#360

Post by commandlinefan »

Apocryphon wrote: post #120

If workers rights or material concerns won’t inspire software engineers to consider organizing, perhaps day to day work “lifestyle” hassles like open offices will. It’s been often repeated that developers eschew organizing because one can always go and find a better paying job if they don’t like the work environment they’re in- but good luck trying to find a workplace that gives the average developer their own office…

I’m wishy-washy on organized labor, especially for software developers: I think that we’d see less unpaid overtime if there were some sort of collective bargaining going on. I seriously doubt that any labor organization would ever do anything (or even try to do anything) about open offices.
Post reply on HN