The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies • Hacker News Board

Re: The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies

#151

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #29

ronaldx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. If your job can be done in a closed office without interacting with anyone, why do you need to be in an office at all?

Because home might be an even worse place to concentrate in than open-space office. I know it is for me, it's the only reason I actually come to work instead of doing it remotely (which costs me additional 2h/day of commute time).

The people who share my home do not respect my workspace. If you think interruptions for work-related questions are productivity killers, imagine being asked to empty the trash for the fourth time in one day. Oh yes, let me interrupt this work that requires some level of concentration and skill to do something menial and distracting. Again. Or be pestered about it incessantly until I do it.

I'd gladly work remotely, but not from home. No way. If there are no small-business-incubator businesses nearby, I'll be working public library hours, thank you very much.

Re: The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies

#152

Post by thejosh » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

jami wrote: post #145

thejosh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great term, does that make when multiple people ask you questions a distributed denial of service?

Meetings.

Meetings you are expected to be able to handle a large amount of traffic because you are not doing any actual work.

Re: The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies

#153

Post by pitt1980 » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 3:00 PM UTC

riggins wrote: post #94

Robin_Message wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> constant interruption and frustration. The point of the post you are replying to is that the "constant interruption and frustration" enables other developers to be more productive, raising the overall productivity of the team. Also, you probably remember the times when you were interrupted and it was annoying strongly, but do you remember the times you interrupted someone else and saved valuable time?

here's an almost comical excerpt from the Cornell study http://iwsp.human.cornell.edu/file_uploads/offices1_12382569... The data showed that younger workers liked these kinds of offices more than older workers. The reason was instructive: they felt they could learn more from their “officemates” in this kind of office. This makes sense, since in interviews a common reason for wanting to join a company was the opportun…

that squares with my experience as well

the question though is who needs does it make sense for the business to cater to?

also, from my experience, sometimes getting good answers to those early questions makes young workers exponential more productive going into the future

Re: The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies

#154

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 3:00 PM UTC

fudisgud wrote: post #144

>The primary task of a programmer is writing code, which involves sitting at a desk and thinking and typing This is most definitely is not the case for most development positions. Oh yes, there's plenty of code to write if your a developer. But there's communicating with management/qa/business dev/other developers/support as to what to work on, progress on tasks, clarification of requirements, bugs discovered, issues…

And that's where the disconnect happens. I assume you are a manager? Because status meetings are useful for you, but absolutely a disruption to the developer, a time sink and a sap to energy and productivity.

To imagine we want our work environment structured around Reporting what we do, and not around actually Doing the work, is the tragic mistake of our industry. And its largely why I became a consultant/contractor instead of a corporate employee.

Re: The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies

#155

Post by lnanek2 » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 3:02 PM UTC

abalone wrote: post #10

Suffers from the same flaw as most critiques of open plan: it focuses on individual productivity while failing to understand how it contributes to team productivity. Cornell did a study of open plan awhile back that you should all read. I posted it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7507404 The misunderstanding here is that it's just about serendipitously "overhearing" other conversations. 1. Open plan makes…

This varies by the individual as well, however. There are some guys at work here who will ask the tech lead how to merge a source code change into the master branch every single time - one guy has done it three times in a row about a week apart each time and needed personal assistance every time. There are other people who just read the internal wiki and do it without needing hand holding every time. If you are one of the latter, you are penalized more and helped less for being in an open office. You are also penalized by being in a work situation that encourages the former bad behavior.

Re: The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies

#156

Post by pitt1980 » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 3:06 PM UTC

nthj wrote: post #103

felideon wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, except your performance evaluation is done individually. Try to explain to your manager that the QA asks you dumb questions incessantly, interrupting any attempt to remain or even begin to be "in the zone". Non-programmers generally never know how to read whether it is a good time to interrupt or not, unless it's obvious you're just reading an article or something.

> unless it's obvious you're just reading an article or something. Generally agree with you, although just because I'm reading an article doesn't mean it's a good time to ask me a question. Right now, my brain is working on a weird problem while my tests run and I browse HN. I look like I'm goofing off, but I still wouldn't appreciate a context switch to another problem. The polite question if you must interrupt a pr…

I find it interesting that open offices are too distracting

what would be the reaction if the internet was cut off because that was too distracting?

Re: The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies

#157

Post by collyw » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 3:07 PM UTC

Robin_Message wrote: post #37

atlantic wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a developer, I've worked for years both in open-plan spaces and in individual offices. My experience is that productivity is incomparably better in an individual office. There was no upside to open-plan; just constant interruption and frustration.

> constant interruption and frustration. The point of the post you are replying to is that the "constant interruption and frustration" enables other developers to be more productive, raising the overall productivity of the team. Also, you probably remember the times when you were interrupted and it was annoying strongly, but do you remember the times you interrupted someone else and saved valuable time?

I have been at my place for around 3 years, and it was pretty new when I started. I was in an office with one other girl, so when she was speaking, it was usually to me. Now there are 4 of us in the same office, team leads like to discuss stuff with the developers in the office(despite having their own larger offices with tables for that sort of thing). Plus we have more people using my database, so I am getting way more interruptions. I would give my productivity about a quarter of what it was.

Open plan may be better for team productivity, but I doubt it will be 300% more productive.

I personally prefer emails. That way you have something to refer to rather than having to remembered all of the tiny details. Plus we change our mind so often I often can't remember what the final choice was. And tehy don't interrupt what you are doing.

Re: The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies

#158

Post by collyw » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 3:08 PM UTC

NoodleIncident wrote: post #117

riggins wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

here's an almost comical excerpt from the Cornell study http://iwsp.human.cornell.edu/file_uploads/offices1_12382569... The data showed that younger workers liked these kinds of offices more than older workers. The reason was instructive: they felt they could learn more from their “officemates” in this kind of office. This makes sense, since in interviews a common reason for wanting to join a company was the opportun…

If you're the most talented, expert employee in an office, then presumably you are being compensated proportionally. How much of that extra pay can you really earn by being the super-human solo coder, compared with how much can you earn by sharing your knowledge and raising the productivity of the entire team? If you are not being compensated proportionately, that's a separate issue entirely...

Half of the time the rest of the team doesn't seem to give a shit about learning anything new.

Re: The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies

#159

Post by jaredmcateer » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 3:08 PM UTC

RyJones wrote: post #141

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pure hell for people who actually do work, and often repeated by managers who don't "get it." Silly questions are not the genesis of good ideas, they're a denial of service attack on good work. Read Peopleware.

It's amazing all the managers get offices but the ICs get productivity-enhancing cubes.

Not mine. Everyone right up to Senior Director are embedded with the teams. The only exceptions that get an office and door is HR and Legal. When the CTO comes to our office, he also sits with us.

Re: The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies

#160

Post by arca_vorago » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 3:11 PM UTC

My company has a slight variation on the open plan, in which each department has an open space that is separate from the other departments (but you can walk into another for questions). The one critique I had was how screens were inward facing and it was a privacy/security issue. We changed this so now people have screens facing towards outer walls and people face inward, and it preserves the benefits of the open space and keeps a good level of privacy.

One issue is that some people simply don't do well with noise and other people around, for them they need solitary workstations to be fully productive, but that is easy to provide and should be provided. People should work in a comfortable way. Overall, I have been getting used to it and love just being able to ask a few questions of a programmer while I am doing other work.

I do not think I could deal with a single large open space though. Luckily, I also don't field stupid questions as much as some people might in an open plan, as I am one of the only people in the company without a PHD. (it still happens occasionally though)