I work at Esri where almost everyone gets their own office with a sliding door. Private offices are still alive here (Thanks Jack :)
Why We Still Believe in Private Offices
11–20 of 78 posts
Re: Why We Still Believe in Private Offices
#12[deleted]
Re: Why We Still Believe in Private Offices
#13There is another possibility, that all offices are fundamentally flawed creations designed not to foster work so much as to create a dynamic of control. When you pay someone and you control both their place and time for over 1/3 of their daily life, there are inherent problems. I'm not sure that any office plan is ever going to be super ideal because of the fundamental problems of power and control that come with an…
Businesses exist to make money, not just to give people in power a place to harumph about. More productivity IS important, because without that, businesses are losing out on potential income, and that's not what businesses like to do.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Private Offices
#14[deleted]
> Why does open plan become trendy every 20-30 years or so?
Because it costs less. Plus people get sucked up into the hype about how it's great for "brainstorming."
Anyone who's spent much time looking at business trends knows it doesn't really matter how much evidence is produced against something; look at the companies still paying through the nose for meaningless Myers-Briggs tests.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Private Offices
#15The thing to consider here is Stack Exchange is a company that serves geeks, and is built by geeks. Naturally the culture and values of the company are going revolve around developers. But for a huge chunk of the companies out there everything revolves around sales and marketing. The actual role and importance of developers varies from company to company but very few of them are going to revolve around them in the sa…
Consultants are also part of the problem.
I did a Master's degree that shared half its classes with the MBA, and we had some case studies where a consultant was the hero by literally tearing down a wall between sales and operations (the small company had communication and "empathy" issues).
I always end up linking to this summary of Chapter 12 of Peopleware:
Re: Why We Still Believe in Private Offices
#16The thing to consider here is Stack Exchange is a company that serves geeks, and is built by geeks. Naturally the culture and values of the company are going revolve around developers. But for a huge chunk of the companies out there everything revolves around sales and marketing. The actual role and importance of developers varies from company to company but very few of them are going to revolve around them in the sa…
What I've seen in newspapers suggests even for non-coding jobs these sorts of plans reduce productivity.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Private Offices
#17There is another possibility, that all offices are fundamentally flawed creations designed not to foster work so much as to create a dynamic of control. When you pay someone and you control both their place and time for over 1/3 of their daily life, there are inherent problems. I'm not sure that any office plan is ever going to be super ideal because of the fundamental problems of power and control that come with an…
Absolutely. People, and especially a very large fraction of people in the software industry, are loathe to think that anything other than ability and pure reason factor into, well, anything.
Maybe I've just had some poor experiences but I find it is safe to assume that the majority of decisions around office configuration, benefits, salary, etc., are made based on power dynamics, ego, and bean counting (which is itself a means of exerting control) rather than any other reason, especially rather than after considered thought given to employees' needs and desires.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Private Offices
#18There is another possibility, that all offices are fundamentally flawed creations designed not to foster work so much as to create a dynamic of control. When you pay someone and you control both their place and time for over 1/3 of their daily life, there are inherent problems. I'm not sure that any office plan is ever going to be super ideal because of the fundamental problems of power and control that come with an…
Businesses exist to make money, not just to give people in power a place to harumph about. More productivity IS important, because without that, businesses are losing out on potential income, and that's not what businesses like to do.
You'd be surprised how much ego can factor into decisions that are about "making more money" or "making the business more productive". Things like saving face, not wanting to look stupid, or wanting to look cool to impress friends is a huge part of business.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Private Offices
#19One thing I don't understand -- in this time of laptops, tablets and ubiquitous internet access (whether in-office wi-fi or the mobile broadband), why do we still have this discussion?
Are there any companies out there who have a heterogeneous office layout, with open-space areas, single-person rooms and anything in between which could then be used by anyone to their own preference? I would like to see a setup where I'm able to work together with my team in a small-group environment in the morning, and then retreat to a single-person office in the afternoon. In most companies, there is very little reason to be bound to a single desk throughout the day.
I can imagine such a workplace, with team leads/managers being responsible to coordinating their teams when it comes to workplaces, and ideally the company would monitor the usage and constantly adapt and improve the workplace accordingly.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Private Offices
#20An important point is that focusing on online tools (instead of in-person encounters) improves communication. Everyone is on equal footing in terms of being exposed to conversations.
In-person conversations, while arguably higher-bandwidth, are only shared by the participants. You had to have been there.