office -> cube -> open floor plan -> next? what can be even worse than the open floor? Transparent floors? No walls at all? I'm sure in a few years we'll know.
Pair programming.
This open office obsession is essentially panopticon programming.
Ending the open office epidemic
101–110 of 148 posts
Re: Ending the open office epidemic
#102"As a company grows, the cost of restructuring an office to accommodate more people in different layouts is time consuming and expensive. By having desks in an open plan and telephone rooms for quiet time, the idea is that you can solve the cost and flexibility problems while still offering a quiet place to retreat if needed. From a growth perspective this is smart. If I planned to add 30 employees to our office in t…
I still prefer to just stay home when I have to actually get stuff done. Offices are weird. It's not even about open or not. But I can only be really productive if I'm completely alone.
This is the elephant in the room in these open office debates.
Yes, for programming at least, concentration and productivity is better when you move from an open office to something slightly more insular... But you're still thinking within a traditional office paradigm. If your goal is truly increased productivity, let's talk about remote flexibility.
Yet... for stake holders, it just seems wrong to have your workers be too independent. "Company culture" and "we're all in it together" is great for company owners, but at it's core it's really just a now widely normalized practice to get workers to invest even more energy and mindshare.
I can only imagine an increased openness to remote work setups (for geographically local workers) in the coming years. Makes too much sense.
Re: Ending the open office epidemic
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Asking someone a quick question while they are in the middle of something is a good way to break their focus. It takes a lot of effort to "get into the zone", so you will not only lower the productivity of the person you "ask a quick question", but you'll also make him frustrated. He may even get a head-ache. How can you live with yourself? This mostly applies to jobs which involve a higher degree of complexity, like…
I reject this assertion that people get ripped "out of the zone". What are you doing that is so complex that you can't jump right back into it? I've met plenty of people that like to act like they're some super elite programmer that is juggling complex class structures and debugging them inside their head. In my experience so far, those people are full of shit and make overly complex spaghetti code. Idk though, maybe…
It doesn't matter whether I'm doing something simple or complex - for some reason it always takes me 5-10 minutes to refocus after being interrupted.
Re: Ending the open office epidemic
#104I guess I'm in a real minority here, but I'm pretty happy with open-office. Some qualifiers: - The team has a good culture of respecting each other, and we're busy enough not to want to banter too much outside of certain times (e.g., lunch, when we see it already going on, etc.). - I've got good headphones hooked to a 24-bit-DAC'd USB amp. I don't hear anyone unless I'm trying to. - My screen's big enough where visua…
- The team has a good culture of respecting....
For instance, in my office, there is someone here who will literally speak to their team members despite having an ongoing LYNC chat open with them, in a voice that you can hear from a football field away (opposed to a whisper/quiet/ "inside voice").
I think respect and consideration could go a LONG way to making open office plans tolerable for most.
Re: Ending the open office epidemic
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everybody with headphones on never notices how loud they are eating/drinking/coughing/murmuring/adjusting things however. Seems extremely petty but work beside somebody long enough like this and you end up joining the headphone club yourself to block it out. Where I work there's a group chat for low priority questions you can check whenever you're not totally immersed in something. It's also anonymous chat so nobody…
> It's also anonymous chat so nobody is embarrassed to ask "stupid" questions. That's awesome!
Wow, yeah, that's really smart!
(Though, I guess, with a small enough team it probably isn't all that anonymous)
Re: Ending the open office epidemic
#106Anything you can do to keep the entire company on the same floor is a good idea. Putting different people on different floors is enough to get an "us vs. them" dynamic going on. That's the only concrete thing I'd want to improve on from the office plan they described.
Re: Ending the open office epidemic
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still prefer to just stay home when I have to actually get stuff done. Offices are weird. It's not even about open or not. But I can only be really productive if I'm completely alone.
This is the elephant in the room in these open office debates. Yes, for programming at least, concentration and productivity is better when you move from an open office to something slightly more insular... But you're still thinking within a traditional office paradigm. If your goal is truly increased productivity, let's talk about remote flexibility. Yet... for stake holders, it just seems wrong to have your workers…
This is the elephant in the room in remote work debates: remote makes you more productive at work work, on-site makes you more productive at office politics.
Which is better for your career? Hint: it's not remote.
Re: Ending the open office epidemic
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a great point. It reminds me of the "Library Rules" at the 37 Signals office: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3357-an-office-with-ldquolibr... At the same time, I think visual distractions also need to be taken in consideration.
Visual distractions are huge. Huge huge huge. As someone who has trouble concentrating in the first place, tiny visual distractions (even just someone shifting in their seat in the peripheral) are enough to pull me out of flow.
I manage that with three 27-inch monitors, arrayed slightly concave towards me.
Re: Ending the open office epidemic
#109That office plan looks fantastic. I was worried this would be another 'thinkpiece' about replacing the traditional open office plan with something which is more or less the same thing, but somehow has the best of both worlds and was pleasantly surprised.
Anyway - those offices look amazing. Great job.
Re: Ending the open office epidemic
#110I think there's more to the open office epidemic than mere cost. Facebook is pouring tons of money into the largest open office in the world. Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg wrote in "How Google Works" that offices should be (and I wish I were making this up) "crowded, messy, and a petri dish for creativity".
I think many companies use open office formats out of principle. Misguided principles, but principles nonetheless.