I think this really depends on the type of work you do, what kind of personality you have and how exactly your open office is set up. Sometimes, I just need qu

I think this really depends on the type of work you do, what kind of personality you have and how exactly your open office is set up. Sometimes, I just need quiet to get a lot of work done. For these days, I might work at home so people don't stop by my office. Even with an office, people stop by all the time to tell me little things. That can make concentrating on programming, design or other stuff really difficult. Each interruption can knock me out of focus for 15 minutes. There is also the non-stop ringing of my office phone. On the other hand, when we are close to shipping something or in the earlier conceptual stages, it's nice to have a bunch of product people together without any walls. We might sit around a table with laptops and punch list and QA the rest of the product before we get ready to ship it.