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

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

#241

Post by edanm » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 9:57 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #239

edanm wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you (or anyone) go into more detail on what the number "$100K yearly salary" includes and doesn't include, in the US? Helpful for those of us not in the US. I.e. what makes up that extra 50%-100%? Our own multiplier (Israel) is usually 30% extra over the stated salary, although the salary here is usually stated as a monthly, not yearly, number.

The universal understanding of salary numbers among employees in the United States is that it is gross cash pay before deductions. We typically quote them annually for professional positions, and they're typically paid out in approximately equal bi-weekly installments, with a bit of variation for cash bonuses (which are common in some industries/locales and not in others). The biweekly paycheck for someone with a $10…

Excellent! Thanks for the breakdown.

If anyone is interested, here in Israel we usually talk about the gross monthly salary, and we add around 25%-30% above that for the "true" employer cost.

Similar to the US system, but we usually don't include perks like gym membership when thinking of "employer costs". I think they're also less common, which might explain it. We do include the employer portion of the taxes, the employer portion of the pensions, potentially the employer portion of other savings accounts, and - unlike the US, I believe - one perk that is very common here is a company car, which is usually leased out to the employee.

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

#242

Post by gtirloni » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 10:00 PM UTC

maaaats wrote: post #58

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some of the best and most productive days I have had have been where I have been in the same cramped office as the rest of my team and we were all working on different chunks of the same problem - "Bob - are you using a list or a dictionary to pass the foobars in?" That's great for a single team all working on one thing - but I do not see the open plan office as a series of nicely appointed open plan offices…

I agree, team rooms is a suitable middle ground. You get the info and time-saving disrupting between members of the team, and get to ignore stuff from outside the team. If there's people running between all the rooms, a designated "contact person of the day" for each team is a good idea.

I think team rooms are a problem if, and only if, they are permanent. I've worked in cubicles, open floors and permanent team rooms and in the later all people did was to use the privacy to surf the web, talk about stupid stuff they would not dare to mention in a open floor. It made it very tricky to concentrate, but at least the problem was concentrate and a talk with the team leader / manager would usually quiet thing down for a while.

Ad-hoc team rooms sound like a very good idea though.

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

#243

Post by brudgers » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 10:13 PM UTC

resu_nimda wrote: post #238

brudgers wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Alan J. Perlis, the best book on office design for the layman is Alice in Wonderland .

Good to know, thanks.

http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html

Architectural design is like programming except that the first run of the compiler is the last and even a cheap building office building costs a multiple of a fuck you exit money. So there's no ok let's walk away. Users are going to live with the first executable for thirty years or more.

That said, there's a reason that Alexander's book launched the idea of software architecture twenty years ago. It's that fertile in design values for the working humanist. Libertarians and corpratists perhaps not so much.

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

#244

Post by abalone » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 10:14 PM UTC

mikevm wrote: post #171

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…

> 1. Open plan makes it easier to ask questions. Those are "disruptions", yes, but what the Cornell study found is that in open plan it's actually easier to "read" a person and see if it's an OK time to ask a question, and to quickly reply or say ask me later, and so forth, to efficiently manage those disruptions. So just for the off-chance that someone could ask me a question, I have force myself to wear headphones…

People are generally a lot less likely to ask questions over IM. The Cornell study found a couple of things of note here:

1. Being able to "read" someone visually helps in determining whether it's an ok time to interrupt. "Unexpectedly.. more visual contact actually contributes to fewer unwanted interactions, not more, by changing not so much the frequency as the timing of conversations."

2. More frequent social interaction builds more trust. People felt more comfortable asking for help.

3. A lot of information is acquired through something called "tacit learning". That's info that's never written down that you pick up by observing others. You may not even know to ask about it or have an opportunity. Open plan greatly helps the spread of this.

4. Most damningly, it notes that self-interested developers are biased towards individual productivity more than team productivity. This often leads them to undervalue the benefits of "disruptions".

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

#245

Post by walshemj » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 10:16 PM UTC

BrownBuffalo wrote: post #232

walshemj wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really what about those of us with conditions like dyslexia which are negatively effected by interruptions far more than the average person? And you might want to Google "flow state" and how that applies to development work.

So you think the needs of the [one] outweight the needs the of the [many]? That's the foundation of your sympathy card, right? Look, accomidations are made in any environment - but doesn't mean it's going to stop the idea that open-floor space is "bad" on the whole. Mihaly is in the minority, btw. The top things that motivate employees are not individualistic, silo achievement but rather derives from group/team build…

So your saying that Steve McConnell and many other experienced developers are wrong.

Back in the 80's I was the core programmer on a map-reduce system that formed a part of one of the only 3 products British telecom sold internationally my CTO was one of Vint Cerfs reports.

what have you shipped or done?

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

#246

Post by abalone » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 10:20 PM UTC

msluyter wrote: post #112

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…

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…

I'd be curious to read the study too.

One of the most fascinating observations by Cornell is how self-interested employees are biased towards maximum individual productivity to the detriment of team productivity. I wonder if the 100 other studies controlled for that. Cornell is a pretty reputable institution. You know what they say.. 1 great study is worth 100 good ones.

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

#247

Post by waterlesscloud » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 10:22 PM UTC

abalone wrote: post #244

mikevm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Open plan makes it easier to ask questions. Those are "disruptions", yes, but what the Cornell study found is that in open plan it's actually easier to "read" a person and see if it's an OK time to ask a question, and to quickly reply or say ask me later, and so forth, to efficiently manage those disruptions. So just for the off-chance that someone could ask me a question, I have force myself to wear headphones…

People are generally a lot less likely to ask questions over IM. The Cornell study found a couple of things of note here: 1. Being able to "read" someone visually helps in determining whether it's an ok time to interrupt. "Unexpectedly.. more visual contact actually contributes to fewer unwanted interactions, not more, by changing not so much the frequency as the timing of conversations." 2. More frequent social inte…

Calling me "self-interested" because I want an environment that makes me the most productive is not winning me over.

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

#248

Post by mikevm » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 10:32 PM UTC

abalone wrote: post #244

mikevm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Open plan makes it easier to ask questions. Those are "disruptions", yes, but what the Cornell study found is that in open plan it's actually easier to "read" a person and see if it's an OK time to ask a question, and to quickly reply or say ask me later, and so forth, to efficiently manage those disruptions. So just for the off-chance that someone could ask me a question, I have force myself to wear headphones…

People are generally a lot less likely to ask questions over IM. The Cornell study found a couple of things of note here: 1. Being able to "read" someone visually helps in determining whether it's an ok time to interrupt. "Unexpectedly.. more visual contact actually contributes to fewer unwanted interactions, not more, by changing not so much the frequency as the timing of conversations." 2. More frequent social inte…

> 1. Being able to "read" someone visually helps in determining whether it's an ok time to interrupt. "Unexpectedly.. more visual contact actually contributes to fewer unwanted interactions, not more, by changing not so much the frequency as the timing of conversations."

I don't mind being interrupted by someone who wants to ask me a question. The explicit interruptions are not what makes the open office a painful experience -- it's the background noise that comes with it. This is why many people work with headphones on. You shouldn't be listening to music just because you need to concentrate on your work.

> 2. More frequent social interaction builds more trust. People felt more comfortable asking for help.

Surely you could think of better ways to build trust between team members other than sitting everyone in an open space?

> 3. A lot of information is acquired through something called "tacit learning". That's info that's never written down that you pick up by observing others. You may not even know to ask about it or have an opportunity. Open plan greatly helps the spread of this.

I don't want to be observed while working. I'm not a lab rat.

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

#249

Post by abalone » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 10:43 PM UTC

mikevm wrote: post #248

abalone wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are generally a lot less likely to ask questions over IM. The Cornell study found a couple of things of note here: 1. Being able to "read" someone visually helps in determining whether it's an ok time to interrupt. "Unexpectedly.. more visual contact actually contributes to fewer unwanted interactions, not more, by changing not so much the frequency as the timing of conversations." 2. More frequent social inte…

> 1. Being able to "read" someone visually helps in determining whether it's an ok time to interrupt. "Unexpectedly.. more visual contact actually contributes to fewer unwanted interactions, not more, by changing not so much the frequency as the timing of conversations." I don't mind being interrupted by someone who wants to ask me a question. The explicit interruptions are not what makes the open office a painful ex…

The point is, people may not know that you don't mind. Seeing someone's face makes it easier to "read" someone and manage the timing of their interrupt. Not the case with IMs, doors and cubes. This is one reason why the bar for "frequent communication" plummets in closed plan offices.

As for not wanting to be observed.. of course you don't. It's not in your self interest. But it is in the interest of team productivity to promote tacit learning. Let other people more readily learn how to do what you do, your tips & tricks, the little things not written down and formally taught.

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

#250

Post by abalone » Tue, Apr 01, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #247

abalone wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are generally a lot less likely to ask questions over IM. The Cornell study found a couple of things of note here: 1. Being able to "read" someone visually helps in determining whether it's an ok time to interrupt. "Unexpectedly.. more visual contact actually contributes to fewer unwanted interactions, not more, by changing not so much the frequency as the timing of conversations." 2. More frequent social inte…

Calling me "self-interested" because I want an environment that makes me the most productive is not winning me over.

It is if it's at the detriment of overall team productivity.

Typically the more senior you get, the more important it is for you to allocate time to help others. A place I used to work at codified this. You had to have X percent helping-others time and X grew as you rose in the ranks. That's precisely because of the important of team vs. individual productivity.