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Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

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Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#221

Post by wpeterson »

ScottBurson wrote: post #79
mcphilip wrote: post #14

I really struggle to get in the 'zone' where I can do the creative aspects of software engineering (e.g. researching graph databases like neo4j and determining if our startup can benefit from it) when I'm in an open environment. I have been diagnosed with ADD for the past 8 years, but am working towards a medication free approach to dealing with it. Open spaces really hurt my productivity because my mind naturally tr…

Good grief -- you don't need to have ADD to find open environments and interruptions distracting! The vast majority of creative workers need quiet! (A few can focus in any situation, but they are the exceptions.) I find I have to alternate between focused creative work and more interactive work on a timescale of days to weeks. That is, I spend several days to a few weeks (occasionally 2 or 3 months) where I am more i…

Separating focused, creative work from interrupt-driven work is essential. Context switching between them is expensive.

On my engineering team we tried to collect all interrupt driven work together (triaging bug reports, working on deployments, production issues) and let it only bother one person. This is a sacrificial duty of your long-term productivity we all rotate each sprint (bug duty).

I find it easier to do interrupt-driven work when I'm full time in an interruptible context. I'd much rather be on-call for a week once every couple of months than be interrupted several times a day.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#222

Post by wpeterson »

paulhodge wrote: post #171
keithpeter wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't like open-plan, but it tentatively appears to be most effective for organizations as a whole." The original article is quoting peer-reviewed research that tends to support the opposite of your opinion. What do you think is wrong with the methodology employed in the OA?

I can help with that: "Workers in open-plan offices get sick more often" - Only supported by one study done in Denmark. Not enough research. "Open-plan offices are less productive" - Supported by a study which only identified some of the negative effects of a open-office plan (such as the effect of irrelevant speech). That study didn't attempt to measure the benefits of an open office, or attempt to exhaustively list…

I worked in a similar, one-giant-open-area office for a year and didn't enjoy it.

My team was a cluster of 8 fixed desks in a giant sea of engineering, with people always walking through our area on their way somewhere else. The noise level was so high they installed custom white-noise generators that have an unnerving effect when you spend all day with them.

Contrasting this to another company where there were separate team rooms of 5-10 people for each group in the company and it was much more pleasant while still having a lot of the same benefits.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#223

Post by wpeterson »

davesims wrote: post #142
geoka9 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> high-functioning teams tend to thrive on the cross-talk and constant communication that open plan creates organically. I wonder how programmers in such environments can get in the "zone" and stay in it for extended periods of time, if they are being "constantly communicated with".

I'm ADD to the core, and I find it actually easier to zone out and code with a low-level background noise, "coffee-shop" style. Large spikes in noise are a problem, and also non-relevant conversations that pull everyone's attention off-task, but on the open teams I've been on, in general this has been the exception not the rule. My experience at large tables has been that good coders and PMs will actually IM a develo…

This has worked well for our teams. As a social norm of software development I always IM/email someone with their headphones on and don't interrupt them.

It's also a nice courtesy to IM someone before dropping by their desk so they aren't surprised and you can check if it's a bad time.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#224

Post by rossjudson »

monkeynotes wrote: post #193
mindcrime wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but that is a weak excuse. It is not necessary to have everybody sitting in one big open room, in an environment where anybody can interrupt anybody (or everybody) at the drop of a hat, to be agile. I would also argue that if your project is being that reactive that it should be considered an anti-pattern, and that you should examine ways to make things less chaotic (erm, I mean, "agile").

Just because anyone can interrupt doesn't mean this happens all the time. People are pretty considerate, and if you need to concentrate you'll be left alone. As for 'anti-pattern' I'd say that describes our set up rather well. And yes, changes need to be made to make the work more predictable but until someone cracks that nut the boots on the ground definitely benefit from sitting together and being able to turn to t…

There's a machine to help you be left alone. It's called a door. They are outstanding, if you have one.

People initiate communications for social reasons, or if they cannot proceed on a task without additional information. These "choke points" don't line up, from person to person. When you're at a choke point you have a decision to make -- defer work and interrupt your own flow, or interrupt the flow of someone else so you can keep your own rolling.

Unless problems are pedestrian or communication times are aligned, it's zero-sum. And that's presuming that the initiator has kept his own flow going (at the expense of someone else's).

You can sometimes (but not always) maintain a queue of tasks and switch to another, instead of interrupting someone else.

But the best thing to do is to get into flow prepared. Figure out beforehand what you don't know, and get it straight. Don't just dive in. Spend a few minutes sorting out what you're missing, line that up first, then head into flow.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#225

Post by rossjudson »

SatvikBeri wrote: post #26
ryguytilidie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest. If we wanted engineers to be most productive, we would give them quiet, private spaces to work. But that is expensive so we put them in open plan arrangements that cost less and pretend that the main reason it's done is higher productivity.

As someone who is regularly exposed to these types of decisions, I don't think cost is the reason. Everyone recognizes that engineers are more expensive than office space. Private offices result in engineers getting more done but working on the wrong things, or solving problems in slightly the wrong way. The goal is to expose developers to the organization more so they have a stronger sense of what users/customers va…

The problem you're describing has nothing to do with the type of office space, and everything to do with a significant lack of management ability and technical leadership. Do you really need to be looking over someone's shoulder on a minute-by-minute basis?

A manager who does this is incompetent or has hired incompetent people.

A technical leader who does this is controlling or -- again -- is dealing with incompetent people.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#226

Post by lisper »

vibrolax wrote: post #109
jquery wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful. Daily use of in-ear headphones can lead to impacted ear wax. Your hearing will gradually degrade until you can't understand people at all. Then one morning you wake up and realize you're deaf and you make a trip to the doctor where they pull out a block of ear wax the size of a lozenge and just as hard. Happened to me twice before I ditched using in-ear headphones at work.

I have been prone to cerumen (earwax) buildup my entire adult life, regardless of whether I wore in-ear, sealed, open-air phones, or nothing at all. In my early twenties, a doctor showed me how to remove it using a small piece of alcohol-moistened cotton plucked from a cotton ball twisted onto a flat toothpick. He said commercial cotton swabs were too large and the cotton was packed too hard for the task. While his a…

http://www.earclear.com/

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#227

Post by donw »

pbiggar wrote: post #25

I gave a talk on this topic [1], and about 60% of the audience was cheering and totally for this. But I got a small number of people coming up afterwards and saying they much preferred open plan. So I think there's definitely a downside: developers enjoy work less because it's less social, and less collaborate. I think overall the benefit is there though. Does anyone know how much it costs to have private offices all…

If the annual cost of giving each $120k+ engineer his own office is $1k, and if that increased his productivity by a mere 1%, you would still make more money and have a much easier time hiring.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#228

Post by mh- »

kamaal wrote: post #88
absconditus wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether your coworkers enjoy being interrupted frequently.

Having the luxury to be interrupted frequently and yet not get frustrated is likely a indication that you are doing a lot of small tasks that don't require long hour focus. If you are doing something important that needs you to be focused on on particular a thing for long hours,without any interruption, frequent interruptions are disastrous. There are also more ways to look at it. If you are doing too many small time…

If you are doing too many small time tasks that don't demand any serious focus. Its likely you have taken the wrong direction with regards to your career.

Great way of putting that. Can I borrow this? :)

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#229

Post by tespun »

I think the positive and negative effects of open floor plans vary per person and the type of work being done. For example, I can find music disturbing when I need to do work that requires a lot of thought and concentration but it's perfectly fine if I'm doing something mundane.

The comfort of having a door to close is also nice so you can focus. Also it's great to be able to every once in a while take a few minute break and do something mindless and non-work related and not have people think you're slacking.

Like some others that posted here I think you need to mix and match for a semi-open floor plan that includes, conference rooms, lounges and private offices that people can take turns in.

However, when I worked at companies with open floor plans I tended to hang out with my coworkers more outside the office. It was good for team building and for pulling some funny pranks on one another.

Re: Open-plan offices make employees less productive, less happy, and more sick

#230

Post by dgallagher »

bdcravens wrote: post #41
ghotli wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.amazon.com/Shure-SE210-Sound-Isolating-Earphone/d... Those effectively eliminate auditory ADD in an open environment. Nothing has been more effective than these for me.

I have a pair of Bose Quiet Comfort 15's, supposedly one of the best noise canceling headphones you can buy. While it eliminates alot of the noise, noise still gets in.

Combine them with 30dB or better earplugs. If you can still hear things that are bothersome, play some music or pink noise.

Note that earplug use can cause earwax buildup. There are a bunch of home remedy's that can help. Talk to your doctor about options.

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