221–230 of 259 posts
I think this is a good indication that a team is getting too large, needs to be split into smaller teams. There is a notion of "two pizza teams" described by Werner Vogels (http://derivadow.com/2007/02/20/two-pizza-teams/) to keep things efficient and organized. For teams this small, open floor is very productive and efficient for collaboration, including software development.
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…
Even with nothing but white noise going through them I'm totally able to ignore 99% of all the open floor plan distractions.
Developers/Tech People: most likely introverts because they are the analytical type.
Management says, "What's good for us might be good for them. Right?" Developer says (silently), "No."
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Wow. You think that time I spend coding features you asked for is not helping you? Then at the end of the week, I am still giving an accounting of why a feature isn't finished on a schedule given by the same people who were interrupting the work I was doing to satisfy their stated priorities. I'm amazed at how you totally ignore that this makes people miserable and contributes to bad management. Why not learn to use…
I don't think anyone is arguing that writing features isn't helping the company in general, and the individuals that asked for it - but that's not the only way developers can help other individuals within a company: - Developers can ask other developers questions when they're stuck on a certain problem. In my experience, developers waste far more time when they're stuck on a problem then when they're interrupted. - Q…
It should slow them down. If they are blocked multiple times a day, it isn't the communication method that is the problem, it is the process. Interrupting developers multiple times a day is not the solution.
The issue isn't open floor plans or private offices. It's quality of design, and indirectly hipsterism. Good open floor plan designs are driven by acoustics and sitelines - management of audible and visual distractions. Yeah, staining the concrete slab and exposing the brick wall and using the metal pan and joists of the floor above as the ceiling and hauling in oak library tables as desks, just echos "lookie here, w…
Do you have any primers on good open office design? Ideally something more accessible than a full textbook, to start with. It sounds like you're saying that the optimal design is the incredibly dreary Office Space setup. You seem pretty critical of "hipsterism," a lot of which could be more charitably called "caring about aesthetics." Is there no middle ground?
One size doesn't fit all [situations]. In my experience, open plans work when active collaboration is necessary by shortening the communication paths. They also work in the short term when everyone is focused on subsets of a common task. However, open plans are abysmal (again in my experience) when you need time to concentrate (most of my day when I'm programming anything non-trivial). I hear the same tired arguments…
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…
I call your one study and raise you 100: In 2011, the organizational psychologist Matthew Davis reviewed more than a hundred studies about office environments. He found that, though open offices often fostered a symbolic sense of organizational mission, making employees feel like part of a more laid-back, innovative enterprise, they were damaging to the workers’ attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and s…
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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.
When we moved to our new building, interior spaces were meeting rooms. Next layer out were manager cubes. Final layer out were the worker cubes, everyone faced the big floor-ceiling windows.
This actually had a drawback. There were cunning metal shades over the windows to keep out the sun. These worked great to block the sun. They also collected snow. Which, thanks to wind, and sun, melted into in a slant, like a roof. Our first Thaw in that building and the ice/snow ...
BONNNGGGGG through the building frame as the snow slides off and the shade vibrates like a giant tuning fork.
A few minutes later BONNNGGGGG as the next in line sheds snow.
And so on. This went on all .. day ... long.
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Seconded; it's a cost and politics issue to have open floor plans, and mostly to "put those uppity programmers in their place." Wouldn't want them asking for what they're worth, now would we? And hey, by having them constantly distracted and not able to concentrate, they won't be as productive and therefore not feel justified in asking for what they're worth! I mean, if open floor plans and cubicles were really that…
Sounds like a conspiracy theory. Why would a company want its own employees to be unproductive? I think it's more likely that open floor plans cost less per square foot or seem productive.
Open plan offices are only part of the problem. The other more serious issue is that we as a society have collectively ruined out ability to concentrate. Email clients, chat clients, Social media, rapid fire short form articles, distraction wherever you look; these all contribute to a reduced attention span. I do think it's possible to change the habit, but that requires mindfulness to engage in less context switchin…