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The Open-Office Trap

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Re: The Open-Office Trap

#91

Post by Florin_Andrei »

mindcrime wrote: post #80
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dominance. If the higher-ups have their own offices, whereas the plebes are amassed in the sweatshop, it gives the former a sense of dominance. It increases testosterone production, which makes them feel better, stronger, more energetic. It's very hard to change something in a place if it makes the decision-makers feel really good. "Rational actors" my ass. We are all a bunch of chimpanzees.

"Rational actors" my ass. We are all a bunch of chimpanzees. I think it's a little bit more nuanced than that. My guess is that people are mostly rational in many ways, but far less than totally rational in many ways. Some economists and social-science types refer to the term "bounded rationality".[1] I think that's about right. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality

I agree. I was not aiming for absolutely rigorous language.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#92

Post by aaronem »

AlisdairSH wrote: post #40
dpark wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cubes still suck. They have most of the same noise issues as open floor plans. Assholes on speakerphone conference calls... Also your plan requires that everyone work primarily on laptops (unless you expect to lug your desktop and monitors to a cube when you need to concentrate). And you've basically allocated double the space (cubes for half the team plus a room big enough for the whole team). Why not just cut the s…

Does anybody work for a software company that doesn't issue laptops as the primary PC? I haven't had a desktop in 10 years and just assumed that was the norm.

I've never worked for a company which didn't issue desktops as primary development machines, and I haven't used a single-display desktop machine since 2007.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#93

Post by trusche »

I find it interesting that in all these articles and studies about open plan offices, the distraction from noise levels is always so prominent, but the other side of that issue rarely gets mentioned. In my experience of open offices, everyone is so aware of potentially disrupting their colleagues by striking up a conversation that nobody does it. So instead of fostering an atmosphere of collaboration, the open office can actually actively prevent it. Is that as common as I think it is?

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#94

Post by zwily »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #56
bane wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's really weird is that lots of the new, VC funded startups that should be really progressive about coddling employee needs are building these kinds of offices.

Dominance. If the higher-ups have their own offices, whereas the plebes are amassed in the sweatshop, it gives the former a sense of dominance. It increases testosterone production, which makes them feel better, stronger, more energetic. It's very hard to change something in a place if it makes the decision-makers feel really good. "Rational actors" my ass. We are all a bunch of chimpanzees.

Here at Instructure, nobody has offices. And no, the CEO does not just camp out in a conference room all day. He's normally at his desk, out in the open.

We have open desks all around a core of conference rooms and a whole bunch of small 1 and 2-person rooms where you can get peace and quiet if you need it. (And people use them a lot.)

I've been in all sorts of office layouts and they all have their problems. I'm not sure I'd prefer having a private office again, personally speaking.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#95

Post by scott_s »

a-priori wrote: post #83
yummyfajitas wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a bit of calculus homework is done at the frat house, the coffee shop, or other such places. Many people work best in situations other than total isolation and quiet. I'm not sure about the dominance thing either - most open office plans I've seen have no offices for anyone. At my last job the incoming CTO inherited the desk of a freelancer who left the week before.

Background noise and activity isn't all alike. In a coffee shop it's irrelevant: strangers moving about and talking about things that don't concern you. That's easier to tune out than things than the noise and activity in an open plan office where it's people you know moving about and talking about things that may be relevant to you. Also, people are different -- some are better able to tune out background noise -- a…

Yes, very much so. This is why in grad school, I did a lot of work at a bustling coffee shop rather than in our open-plan office space. I had a much easier time concentrating at the coffee shop; there was more activity, but none of it was relevant to me.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#96

Post by scrabble »

bane wrote: post #17

I've written here quite a bit about my basic hatred for open offices. My personal opinion is that open offices are masked in lots of terms about "information flow" and "collaboration" when the reality is that it's about companies being cheap. I also went to a high school built originally on a completely open plan. At some point they realized teachers shouting over each other didn't work, or the teacher next door givi…

Team leads must work in the team rooms to keep things from degenerating to antics.

Why? Why can't we be adults and get the job done? And if we have shown that we get the job done with the desired level of quality in the desired time frame, what's wrong with having fun as well?

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#97

Post by pbreit »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #65
pbreit wrote: post #9

So we've seen a lot of "open offices are bad" articles but they rarely are accompanied by any solutions. Anyone have any better ideas?

Are you serious? Have you not heard of real offices - with, like, doors?

While I do think "real offices with doors" might be a component of the "right" solution, I still think there needs to be more thought and experimentation about other components such as shared spaces, rotations, etc. I also think easily reconfigurable cubes, possibly high-walled, might be another component.

So, yes, very serious.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#98

Post by RandallBrown »

robotresearcher wrote: post #77
bane wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are lots of quick and subtle communications that happen in a team while they're working. The quick "hey where did you check in the change for foo?" or "Let's do this task first, then the other tomorrow" or whatever, that happen in a team very quickly that I think happen better in a physical space then an IM chat or an email. Isolating a team from each other in separate spaces prevents that. But I can ap…

> "hey where did you check in the change for foo?" ... and you just took me out of the Zone. I was about to be intensely productive on hard code for 30 minutes, but now I see it's only 15 minutes 'til lunch. Maybe I'll check email instead of building up that concentration level again.

That same shit happens to me in my open office. The difference is that it's easier for me to dick around for 3 hours instead of 15 minutes since nobody can see my screen or even see if I'm here.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#99

Post by bane »

scrabble wrote: post #96
bane wrote: post #17

I've written here quite a bit about my basic hatred for open offices. My personal opinion is that open offices are masked in lots of terms about "information flow" and "collaboration" when the reality is that it's about companies being cheap. I also went to a high school built originally on a completely open plan. At some point they realized teachers shouting over each other didn't work, or the teacher next door givi…

Team leads must work in the team rooms to keep things from degenerating to antics. Why? Why can't we be adults and get the job done? And if we have shown that we get the job done with the desired level of quality in the desired time frame, what's wrong with having fun as well?

It benefits both the workers and the manager/lead to be in the same space. Having your manager float in once a day or so and then take time out of your work to get them up to speed on what they would know if they were just in the room is silly. It also makes the manager more cognizant of issues faster and forces them to keep production moving forward.

Nobody said it can't be fun, the occasional break is fine. But I've seen team rooms degenerate into multi-hour wrestling nerf gun matches that costs thousands of dollars.

Re: The Open-Office Trap

#100

Post by willyt »

As a counterpoint, I work on my own now, having worked in open plan offices for years, and I find it hard to concentrate because I feel lonely. My ideal office size would be somewhere between 5 and 10 people in a room all working on the same project. You just need a rule that you must leave the room to make phone calls that last longer than a couple of minutes, especially if you have an annoying voice or telephone manner or there is some emotional content to the call. With this setup there should not be to much background noise and you can ask a colleague a question when it suits you as long as you are respectful and don't disturb them if they are 'in the zone'. There is research that supports the 5-10 people sharing a office theory, I think done in the Netherlands in the 70's but I can't find it now. I can't help but think that there is a good reason related to camaraderie and teamwork that around 8 people just so happens to be the smallest organisational unit in the army, a principal the Romans discovered 2000 years ago.
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