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Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

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Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#221

Post by floren »

dkersten wrote: post #156

The best office I've experienced (but sadly only visited for two week, the branch I worked at had typical open plan garbage) had the building split into sections where along both sides were small single-person offices (large enough that two people could sit at a desk and work, or 3 to 4 people could sit for a meeting) with closing sliding doors. In the space between the two rows of offices was a small amount of hot-d…

This is my favorite kind of setup. I call it the "Unix Room" model, because it's sort of like what I saw at Bell Labs: Private offices for staff, but people would also work in an open area often (it helped that they just had terminals scattered around and you could sit at any one of them). I've worked in such an environment and loved it, but of course it costs more space than any of the other alternatives.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#222

Post by falcolas »

debaserab2 wrote: post #71
dehrmann wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The vast majority of my office time was in cubicles, which are pretty good. I remember watching "Office Space" circa 2000 and it looked pretty soul crushing, and working in pre-FAANG big tech around 2006, it felt very mechanical and depressing. I get your gripes, but I think some is also rosy retrospection.

It was dull, gray, and lacking in character but it sure beats sitting elbow to elbow cafeteria style trying to get work done.

I did appreciate how easy it was to liven it up inside your own cubicle though. There are entire lines of office products designed to work with cubicle walls. I had posters, calendars, and random knicknacks, and I was able to create a space where I felt happy. I've never been able to personalize a space the same way since.

Hell, at my current job personalization of your space is actively discouraged, since there's a culture of hot-desking if you're coming in from another office.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#223

Post by ericwood »

slavapestov wrote: post #204
ericwood wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not necessarily just to idly chat with other people, but has more to do with where you get your energy. I find I'm most productive and energized when surrounded by other people. Conversation is a part of it, and the ability to collaborate on the fly is great. If I'm heads down on something it's fine to be isolated every so often, but if it's for more than a few days my energy level is sunk and my productivity ac…

Socializing is great, but maybe you can find an outlet for that outside of work?

What I'm saying is that it goes beyond socializing; if I'm cut off from other people and heads-down all the time I get depressed and it's counter-productive. I socialize plenty outside of work, but I am happiest and most productive at when I can feed off other people's energy.

It's a balance, though, and overstimulation is still an issue, and I need periods of quiet and concentration like anyone else.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#224

Post by kylec »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #185
dualboot wrote: post #137

The other side of this is that a very large percentage of folks in our industry seem to have social anxiety-spectrum issues. Folks without those don't seem to understand how much energy is being burned through just being out in the open and on display for all of your coworkers. It's not something I, personally, have control over. The time I've spent in "open concept" work places, I finish every day frustrated with my…

I've had the opposite experience. I had a job where half the floor plan was cubicals and half was open plan where you had groups of 2-3 people in a sort of cove. I started in the cubicle section. And I hated my job. Every day felt draining to the soul. I felt invisible and isolated and I hated it. I was making no progress in the organization. I'd constantly find excuses to leave my desk just to see another human face…

Extroverts: I feel invisible and isolated and I hate it.

Introverts: I feel invisible and isolated and I love it.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#225

Post by noxToken »

BoorishBears wrote: post #128
moron4hire wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're saying, but it's really more that we didn't know just how bad it could get. Cubicle farms were "soul crushing", because they came about from the same management practices that eventually led to open-floor plans: treating people as cost centers rather than people, micromanaging measurable real-estate costs at the expense of unmeasurable productivity. And while one can theoretically make good s…

You know what, if I'm going to be downvoted for an opinion, it should at least earn it: Too bad open offices are here to stay, if you were worth it you could get an office, maybe invest in some good headphones :)

>a huge part of craft is communication, and open offices are great for that.

Can you explain this to me? How does an open office lead to better communication than cubes or partitioned group work spaces?

I'm in an open office. A lot of communication is done via email and IM. When someone comes to my desk to ask a question, collaborate, or just say hey, I typically don't get up. If a group stops by, we'll usually move to a collaborative area or set up a meeting. This would be true no matter if I were in a cube or partitioned group area. If I have a private office, I may not even have to leave my desk.

The typical response I see to this is that open offices tend to have this implied notion of everyone is willing to communicate at any time. I'd argue that on an individual level for developers, that's more often false. Someone head-down probably doesn't want to be interrupted.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#226

Post by MandieD »

ergothus wrote: post #218
Enginerrrd wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the opposite experience. I had a job where half the floor plan was cubicals and half was open plan where you had groups of 2-3 people in a sort of cove. I started in the cubicle section. And I hated my job. Every day felt draining to the soul. I felt invisible and isolated and I hated it. I was making no progress in the organization. I'd constantly find excuses to leave my desk just to see another human face…

One of my offices, after vocal complaints about the open office plan, did a quick survey. Roughly 50% were fine with the open office plan. (this office was mainly devs, HR, recruiting, and data scientists) As someone that is drained by social interactions (I _like_ them, but afterwards I'm drained, not energized), that is easily distracted by movement, and who can't hear conversations in the background without instin…

Trying to tune out the background conversations is especially hard when most of them are in a language you speak usefully, but not fluently.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#227

Post by mumblemumble »

ergothus wrote: post #218
Enginerrrd wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the opposite experience. I had a job where half the floor plan was cubicals and half was open plan where you had groups of 2-3 people in a sort of cove. I started in the cubicle section. And I hated my job. Every day felt draining to the soul. I felt invisible and isolated and I hated it. I was making no progress in the organization. I'd constantly find excuses to leave my desk just to see another human face…

One of my offices, after vocal complaints about the open office plan, did a quick survey. Roughly 50% were fine with the open office plan. (this office was mainly devs, HR, recruiting, and data scientists) As someone that is drained by social interactions (I _like_ them, but afterwards I'm drained, not energized), that is easily distracted by movement, and who can't hear conversations in the background without instin…

Can't find it anymore, but I could swear there was a study that recently hit the HN front page that found that everyone's productivity objectively takes a hit in a distracting environment. But, subjectively, extraverts perceive themselves as being more productive, while introverts don't.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#228

Post by imgabe »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #185
dualboot wrote: post #137

The other side of this is that a very large percentage of folks in our industry seem to have social anxiety-spectrum issues. Folks without those don't seem to understand how much energy is being burned through just being out in the open and on display for all of your coworkers. It's not something I, personally, have control over. The time I've spent in "open concept" work places, I finish every day frustrated with my…

I've had the opposite experience. I had a job where half the floor plan was cubicals and half was open plan where you had groups of 2-3 people in a sort of cove. I started in the cubicle section. And I hated my job. Every day felt draining to the soul. I felt invisible and isolated and I hated it. I was making no progress in the organization. I'd constantly find excuses to leave my desk just to see another human face…

"cove of 2-3 people" isn't really open plan. Working next to a couple people who you'll probably end up getting friendly with if they aren't jerks is very different from working in an ocean of 50 people.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#229

Post by falcolas »

organsnyder wrote: post #190
victords wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t you agree it’s much more practical and inviting if you could just turn around a talk? I’d imagine that if I needed to get up, walk up there and knock on my coworker’s door, I’d rather just message him. And a text conversation and face to face one are very different and could lead it to different places.

My experience has been the opposite. People in open offices tend to avoid in-depth conversations because they don't want to disturb their neighbors; instead, they take conversations into conference rooms. The only people holding conversations in the open space are those talking about non-work topics (usually TV shows, movies, or sports), and seemingly lacking all awareness that they're disturbing the people trying to…

And since all conversations require a conference room, the conference rooms are always full of people talking.

Re: Open-plan offices decrease face-to-face collaboration: study

#230

Post by cjfd »

Normally I don't suffer that much from having roommates but today I was diagnosing a difficult problem and the noise from people talking to each other, then on the phone, then leaving, then coming back and so on. Every time that happened my train of thought was lost again. It was pretty terrible.

Incidentally, the problem was a memory leak in asynchronous code and the cause turned out to be the google test framework keeping a reference to a future that could otherwise have been destroyed.

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