Anyone have good tips for surviving in an open office? There are the obvious ones like noise-cancelling headphones — but are there any other good hacks for making an open space at least somewhat tolerable?
Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
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Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#112It's really interesting. I think it has to do with whether the teamwork necessary to do the task is real, or only exists in the mind of managers.
My first job was on a newspaper production floor. It was an open office clustered by role, with matching support people clustered nearby. I have never seen an environment that had the astonishing level of productivity per person of this team, and I mean by easily a factor of 10x. Any question I had I could get an answer in 2 seconds. We were using laughably old equipment, but there was no emailing anything, and there was no possibility of miscommunication. It was exhilarating.
OTOH these were well defined tasks, with a deadline at the end of each day. So it was like running a team tough mudder every week.
My next office job, years later, had a semi-open floorplan. It was an absolute nightmare. My coworkers would listen to Howard Stern every morning, and then leave the radio on afterwards. People would have protracted calls on speakerphone. Compared to the newspaper, it seemed like no one was ever actually working, instead they were just talking about nonsense, and torturing me in the process. Typically someone would send you an email, then immediately walk over to your desk and explain it to you with no regard for whether you were busy.
But this work was complex, boring, intricate, different every time, and the deadlines were months away, the biggest challenge was planning and focus. There was much less reason for teamwork and a much greater need to delve in to your task and be left alone.
So I think generalizing about open floorplans is difficult. It obviously has to do with company culture and the type of work.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#113I'll play contrarian for a moment: the most productive office I've ever worked in was an open office layout. What worked for us: * Separate clusters by function / noise level -- We didn't put sales people and developers next to one another. People who spent all day on the phone were near other people who spent all day on the phone. * Keep clusters small -- We had 4 person "pods" of desks for most of our early lifecyc…
I think you've nailed it.
Open offices can work well, but it requires a little bit of effort and adherence to the rules. We have plenty of breakout areas for impromptu meetings, ample numbers of meeting rooms for more extended ones. There's plenty of space to cloister oneself for a while if needed. Our development team is together, and a few desks away from more customer-facing staff, which keeps noise down.
Yeah, there are occasional distractions. But so long as everybody is respectful, there are benefits too. It's great for quick pairing sessions, which we do a lot; overhearing conversations and being able to chip in with relevant information is really often useful; even just being able to see who's physically in the office helps.
I suspect a lot of this is going to be dependent on size and culture. So maybe there's an argument that on the whole, open-plan is not worth it. But I'm unconvinced.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
This needs to be said more. I absolutely love being in an open office layout because it allows for easy collaboration as well as the occasional spontaneous fun interruption. People seem to get hung up on the interruptions as if they lose tons and tons of productivity. I just haven't experienced issues like that personally. I find that the interruptions are a welcome break to the monotony of staring at code for 8 hour…
Whoever down-voted your comment should have that privilege revoked. trose's comment was completely on topic and well thought out. Down-voting is not to be used when you simply disagree.
Downvoting is for however the user wants to use it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
> pg 2455 days ago | link | parent | flag
> I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness.
> It only becomes abuse when people resort to karma bombing: downvoting a lot of comments by one user without reading them in order to subtract maximum karma. Fortunately we now have several levels of software to protect against that.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#115This is an opinion piece with a baity title that points to a New Yorker article which has had three extensive discussions on HN, including a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8696391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7832209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7024488
This was the #1 story a few minutes ago but not to be found on any of the top pages anymore. Out of curiosity, do you mod down stories you feel aren't fitting and/or duplicate discussions?
One task of HN moderation is penalizing stories that don't fit the mandate of the site. Duplicates are part of that, though of course a story can be a duplicate without being inappropriate.
We demote duplicates, but if there are already comments on the thread, we leave the post open so discussion can continue.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your advice is on the same level as "eat healthy" and "exercise more". It's nice, we should all do it, however for some people it never happens. And here's the problem - some people just cannot be respectful of other people's time or flow and also you can find a lot of variation between communication styles (e.g. synchronous vs asynchronous) or noise tolerance of people. For example, some people only want to work fro…
I'm bothered by people who prioritize synchronous communication over asynchronous. On a recent project, I worked with someone who was remote. Every time I sent an e-mail, he picked up the telephone. Then he took a long time to get to the point, and couldn't ever seem to disengage cleanly. Open floor plans would probably work great for people like that. I prefer to not be pre-empted from my current task, and to have a…
The synchronous vs asynchronous communication argument is on par with a “best programming language” debate. The style of communication is just a tool that should fit the need and the tasks at hand. If you are working on a largely engineering driven project with a thorough spec where "heads down" development can be most effective than email/messages between team members probably will probably be effective. However, when developing on a small-sprint, iterative agile team that style of communication would be a death knell to effective communication.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#117I'll play contrarian for a moment: the most productive office I've ever worked in was an open office layout. What worked for us: * Separate clusters by function / noise level -- We didn't put sales people and developers next to one another. People who spent all day on the phone were near other people who spent all day on the phone. * Keep clusters small -- We had 4 person "pods" of desks for most of our early lifecyc…
The most productive office I've been at was also an open office layout, and I absolutely agree that the main reason open office layouts don't work is that people are doing it wrong.
I'll just give a +1 for small pods and breakout spaces, since those were a big part of what worked for us.
Here's what I would add to what you're saying:
1. Being respectful of flow has never worked for a team I was on. Instead, what we did is that at all times we had a pair (or the odd person out) whose job it was to field questions. If you needed to know something from a team, you went to the assigned person or pair. A corollary of this is that everyone on a given team was expected to be able to answer questions as a representative of the team. 2. Pair programming: I definitely am prone to distraction, but it's much easier to stay focused when you're working with someone on something. This also contributes to information sharing, which contributes to everyone on the team being able to answer questions.
Many people mention that introverts have a hard time working in an open office layout. But what I haven't seen mentioned on this thread is that extroverts might have an equally hard time working in isolation. I'm an extrovert and I've definitely been in situations where isolation hurt my productivity. And I think that points to the core of the problem: your office space needs to meet the needs of your team, not some romanticized ideal of an Agile™ team. It's unlikely that any processes or procedures are going to make an open office work for an office full of introverts. If an open office doesn't work for your team, that doesn't mean open offices don't work, it just means that your team needs something different.
This points back to the agile manifesto[1]: "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools." An office is just a tool. If you're still looking for a one-size-fits-all office layout, you're prioritizing that tool over the individuals who are using it. That's not agile.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#118I think googles own Eric Schmidt had the best response to this. If open office's were bad for buisness or destroying the workspace the free market would bear that out. There are tangable benefits which is why companies move towards it. I understand some people hate it, but most don't so why do we keep getting the same articles every few months saying the same thing. We get it _you_ don't like the open office space ot…
If market can measure it or understand it they will adjust. Before Toyota and JIT factories were run generally really inefficiently. "I am upset that no one else seems to like TV shows I find enjoyable and they keep getting canceled." You are comparing trivial entertainment with the environment most people spend the most of their productive hours as adults? "Oh, I see you have lost an arm. Well, my finger itches some…
You raise a good point in my defense. When Toyota introduce 6-Sigma the benefits were so great that companies began moving to that methodology en masse. Private offices and offices with more privacy exist and people are moving _away_ from them towards open offices. In the case of 6-Sigma it costs more to run your assembly line in accordance with its principles, but when companies saw the tangible benefits they started to switch.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#119Open offices are type A/extroverted personality wet dreams. Everybody they need is within earshot and they can see EVERYTHING so they can properly control everything. However for introverts, people with noise sensitivity, or people with ADD this is an absolute nightmare. I find a lot of engineers tend to be either introverts or have some type of manageable ADD so it doesn't surprise me that many people would be negat…
This exactly. For me it's manageable (I'm mostly extrovert), but I can completely understand how some people would not work well in such an environment.
At our workplace we have some "meeting rooms" that are effectively small offices. Some of our team who don't like the hustle and bustle of a more open workspace effectively commandeer such rooms almost every day (on days they're not working from home).
Given how email/IM based we are, it seems to all work out fine (for me). For others or folks who don't have the proper layout (i.e., private 1-2 person room available ) then it could indeed suck.
Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace
#120Open offices are type A/extroverted personality wet dreams. Everybody they need is within earshot and they can see EVERYTHING so they can properly control everything. However for introverts, people with noise sensitivity, or people with ADD this is an absolute nightmare. I find a lot of engineers tend to be either introverts or have some type of manageable ADD so it doesn't surprise me that many people would be negat…
I don't feel this way at all, and judging from the number of similar comments that popped up while writing this, I don't think I'm in the minority either. Why can't an introvert put on headphones or simply disregard irrelevant conversations in an open office? Why do type A extroverts feel the need to control things they happen to be nearby?
> Why can't an introvert put on headphones or simply disregard irrelevant conversations in an open office?
You can't disregard your peripheral vision. People walking behind me all day stresses me out in a predictable fashion, as it does with most introverts I've worked with. Unfortunately for me, most startup programmers these days seem to be extroverts. Which makes sense, I suppose, given the large percentage of apps focused on all things social.