Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices
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Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices
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Re: Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices
#2I interviewed with a company and during the "cultural fit" interview with the VP of Engineering, I asked why they used an open-plan office. I mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of concern in the literature and online about developer productivity in such offices. He said he "wasn't familiar" with the discussion, but he didn't think it was a problem.
I was offered a contract-to-hire situation, instead of the employment I was seeking, and was explicitly told that the reason was because I seemed to be concerned about the open office. So be careful about bringing up "science" with people who aren't interested in it.
Re: Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices
#3I prefer little superstition with more science
Re: Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices
#4Maybe we need to re-brand the "open plan" to something else. "Open" is something many tech businesses want to be, especially internally. So an "open" layout helps people be "open" in other desirable ways, right?
Well, not really. It's an unfortunate decision-scrambling word-collision.
It deserve a name that's still descriptive, but of a loud, crowded place where it's hard to get work done. "Stadium plan"? "Nursery plan"? "Transit hall plan"?
Re: Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices
#5I interviewed with a company and during the "cultural fit" interview with the VP of Engineering, I asked why they used an open-plan office. I mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of concern in the literature and online about developer productivity in such offices. He said he "wasn't familiar" with the discussion, but he didn't think it was a problem. I was offered a contract-to-hire situation, instead of the emplo…
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Re: Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices
#6Maybe we need to re-brand the "open plan" to something else. "Open" is something many tech businesses want to be, especially internally . So an "open" layout helps people be "open" in other desirable ways, right? Well, not really. It's an unfortunate decision-scrambling word-collision. It deserve a name that's still descriptive, but of a loud, crowded place where it's hard to get work done. "Stadium plan"? "Nursery p…
Awful Plan? Noisy Office Plan? Distract-o-matic?
Re: Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices
#7I interviewed with a company and during the "cultural fit" interview with the VP of Engineering, I asked why they used an open-plan office. I mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of concern in the literature and online about developer productivity in such offices. He said he "wasn't familiar" with the discussion, but he didn't think it was a problem. I was offered a contract-to-hire situation, instead of the emplo…
For someone to be a VP of Engineering and to not even have heard of the debate around office layout and developer productivity is a bit alarming.
Presumably you didn't take up their offer?
Re: Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices
#82014 is the year of the war on open plan offices.
Some people enjoy working in them, you know. Not everyone is interested in saying "how high" every time some grad student's study says "jump".
Re: Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices
#9I interviewed with a company and during the "cultural fit" interview with the VP of Engineering, I asked why they used an open-plan office. I mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of concern in the literature and online about developer productivity in such offices. He said he "wasn't familiar" with the discussion, but he didn't think it was a problem. I was offered a contract-to-hire situation, instead of the emplo…
Interviews are tough. There's very little time to get a feel for whether a person would be a good fit for an organization - and often, you have to make a judgment: was this comment just off-the-cuff curiosity, or does the fact that the person brought up the open-plan indicate that he or she would have problems with the way that the company works?
In interviews, the open-plan office is non-negotiable. It's not like you're going to convince them in an interview to change their minds and build closed offices. I can imagine a lot of interviewers going "well, if he or she brought it up and has actually studied literature on it, then it's probably something that bothers them, and if it's something that bothers them, we might have a problem down the road... maybe it's better to test the water than to offer full employment."
To be clear, this is a problem with the interview process, not with you (or the person hiring). There's just not enough time to actually understand a person, so interviewers are forced to make guesses and go with their hunches. And because the cost of hiring the wrong person is high, interviewers will often look for any small thing to refuse a hire.
Re: Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices
#10I interviewed with a company and during the "cultural fit" interview with the VP of Engineering, I asked why they used an open-plan office. I mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of concern in the literature and online about developer productivity in such offices. He said he "wasn't familiar" with the discussion, but he didn't think it was a problem. I was offered a contract-to-hire situation, instead of the emplo…
Fit interviews are hard for engineers. Technical interviews are about getting the right answer. Fit interviews are about whether you can tell a convincing lie ("of course I like the working under tight deadlines to changing requirements with minimal support from the business.") It's a tough context switch: from zero-in-on-right-answer to socially-acceptable-bald-faced-lie.