23 ms·

The collaboration curse

154 points by makaimc 11y ago

noir_lord 11y ago
I've worked in open offices, they made it impossible for me to program, so I spent all day "collaborating" and doing scutwork until everyone went home at 5, then I'd stay til 9 to get the stuff I needed to get done done. I'd never do that again, if a company puts me in a position where I can't work during work hours I simply won't, will raise concerns and if not resolved leave. Life is too short to do 70 hour weeks when you are only getting 30 hours work done.
- floppydisk 11y ago
  Indeed. One gig I was at consisted of spending 9-5 doing nothing but meetings/groupwork/collaborating/email and dealing with bosses who kept asking why the coding wasn't getting done and behind schedule in one breath while dragging me into a 3hr+ meeting the next. Getting work done meant getting in before the boss, coding as much as possible until the boss showed up, waiting for the boss to leave, then coding again for another 2-3 hours to keep up. It does get ridiculous. The problem is we've turned asynchronous communication and decision making into a near-real time short loop without considering the cognitive costs. Switching from my editor to email, parsing the 30 new messages, identifying the content to reply to and fabricating the correct reply costs the mental software model being used to guide the coding and it takes time to get it back into place. Switch in/out all day and your only bit of peace comes when the email writers go home.
  - arielweisberg 11y ago
    If you have 3+ hour meetings that sounds like a bug. Maybe figure out why they take so long or why there are so many and address that. Maybe get fewer people in the meeting? Push as much discussion as possible out of the meeting so it only involves the people who care? More delegation and indirection? Managers and leadership should be showing up to more smaller meetings not front line people showing up to fewer longer meetings. I think a reasonable scheduled meeting budget is averaging 1-1.5 hours per week and that is an upper limit not a target. Unscheduled (as in does not repeat every week at the same time) are something to be avoided for a product development team.
    - noir_lord 11y ago
      Sounds nice in theory but the managers set the meeting. What they never seem to realise is a 2 hour meeting with 10 people means they use two hours of their time and 20 hours of their subordinates, most of which is spent waiting for the other 9 to finish. Lots of those managers simply don't see the inefficiency since from their point of view it looks OK.
      - abawany 11y ago
        My theory pertaining to non-technical supervisory staff is that meetings for some fill up an otherwise very empty day. All the technical managers that I have worked for never seemed too eager for meetings - they were too busy building real things to waste time in meetings.
    - matwood 11y ago
      > Maybe get fewer people in the meeting? Push as much discussion as possible out of the meeting so it only involves the people who care? More delegation and indirection? Totally with you here. I also make it mandatory that everyone coming to a meeting read the offline discussion before hand. When someone shows up and we have to summarize the back history again it is selfishly wasting everyones time. I finally started refusing to do it and will leave and tell the PM to reschedule.
    - floppydisk 11y ago
      I think it was part of the management culture and how they got things "done" back in the day. The CEO came from a background where solution finding was sticking people in a war room for hours churning through things to find solutions. That works when you're sitting together analyzing data but not when you're writing the code to create the data being analyzed. It also comes from time valuation. They value their work at $X and my work at $K where X > K so it's oK to burn my $K value because the $X-$K delta is high enough to justify prioritizing their work needs.
    - rqebmm 11y ago
      Yeah, we have an open-office plan, but we've successfully lobbied to have developer meetings largely moved to one day a week, and engineers on important projects get "office hours" to allow for interruptions during a defined time. It's important to separate meeting cultures from open offices.
- epalmer 11y ago
  We have a hybrid space. Cubes surrounded by white boards. Probably 20feet of whiteboard / associate and a few associates with offices with doors and 10 feet of whiteboard. Doors are seldom closed. We use chat for both my team and with another similar team across campus. We are very aware of the penalty of context switching so the spaces tend to be quiet except when there are operational issues. We use a scrum lite approach (daily stand ups but very lightweight). We agree with the comments here that chat should be used for operational or time and sequence sensitive task coordination. We call quick meetings to collaborate on issues and opportunities right after standup and they tend to last about 10 to 20 minutes at most. These don't occur very often (1 or 2 a week). All of this works very well. We have tuned the space a lot over the years. We also have a small table in the space so we can do demos (big monitor on the wall) or have meetings when we want and not be tied to formal meeting space availability. We maybe have 2 to 3 meetings a week in the space and usually they involve everyone (there are 3 of us). My last gig was at a bank and I had no desk. I had a file cabinet and a shared admin (across maybe 80 people). Was expected to find space to work. I carried my office on my back. At times it was great. I could hide from my associates when I needed to get work done. I had 8 people working for me. But when we needed to collaborate or meet we could hardly ever find quiet space to talk through operational issues. We were never allowed to use chat so when operational problems arose people had to assume I was looking at my email. Net net was I hated this approach. I love what I have now.
fishnchips 11y ago
That resonates a lot with me. A few years back my manager in a big-co with a lofty motto would not allow me to work remotely for a week or two to stay closer to my dying parent. As she pointed out, "a lot of innovation happens at the watercooler".
- hire_charts 11y ago
  This is just cruel. I hope you left that job.
- brooklyndavs 11y ago
  Innovation == Talking about what we did that weekend? :) This was cruel and there is no excuse why in 2016 this arrangement couldn't work for a week or two. As a remote member of a mostly onsite team there is some validity that you miss out on the SOCIAL aspects of work (grabbing lunch, hanging out after work from time to time, etc) but the "innovation" on our team is just fine.
- verisimilidude 11y ago
  You should've quit on the spot. "Jobs come and go, but I only have one/two parents who deserve better, etc. Bye." She would've relented and let you go. I've called this bluff several times in my career and I've never lost. But of course, you don't want to work for someone like that in the first place, if you can help it.
  - ashark 11y ago
    My outlook on life has improved since I recognized that we're in an industry and a time that allows us to re-phrase requests like "I'd like to work remotely for a while to be near my parents in a time of need, please" as a statement of fact: "I'm going to work remotely for a while to be near my parents in a time of need" and simply ignore any attempt to contradict it. This won't last forever—enjoy it while you can. Say no early, say no often!
  - fishnchips 11y ago
    It was my first 'real' job and the company was (and still is) considered extremely prestigious in our line of work. So for a junior engineer quitting that job was suboptimal at that stage. I ended up going without permission. Contrary to my expectations I wasn't fired. But was never promoted again, either - no matter how hard I would work for it.
hashkb 11y ago
We can keep writing these articles and reading them and knowing we are right and get nowhere. 1) Say I'm an engineer with a manager who doesn't get it. How can I empathetically (that is, without spontaneously developing a "political performance problem" on my next review) help my manager improve? 2) Say I'm that manager, and I want to improve but meetings and spreadsheets are all I know. What can I do?
- zymhan 11y ago
  Well one option is that if meetings are shorter and we waste less time on performance-evaluating BS, then the surplus of manager's time will result in less demand for managers. Heaven forfend
  - hashkb 11y ago
    Right, but do you schedule a meeting to talk to your manager about it? And when they schedule a series of follow-ups to evaluate the effectiveness of meetings and establish a committee... And oh where's that feature you're working on?
- patrickmay 11y ago
  > 2) Say I'm that manager, and I want to improve but meetings and spreadsheets are all I know. What can I do? Rethink what it means to be a manager. Your job is to eliminate barriers for your team and protect them from distractions. You shouldn't be one of the distractions.
  - wdmeldon 11y ago
    The first manager I had did this explicitly. If he caught sales or marketing talking to the devs, he would ask them what the problem was. It worked well.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    A lot of people say this is the purpose of managers but it seems few actually believe it, especially those who seem to need to actively try to convince people that this is all they're doing. In reality, most non-technical managers of technical staff look down on their subordinates and see themselves as babysitters who need to make sure that those stupid nerds don't waste the company's money, which they've been charged to protect. This results in "removing barriers" by telling everyone to shut up and get back to following directions. Some managers are very sneaky about this and their subordinates often don't realize that's what's happening.
zymhan 11y ago
At my new job, I've really started pushing back against meetings that seem superfluous. Often times I'll find myself saying the same exact thing at 3 different meetings, and it almost never affects anyone else in the room.
- hashkb 11y ago
  What form does this pushing take? How is it working? I ask because I've failed at this before; managers have great power to defend their habits and processes.
  - zymhan 11y ago
    >What form does this pushing take? I've asked my manager specifically what it is I and others are supposed to be getting out of each meeting > How is it working? Well, I only got out of one meeting so far, but I'll be damned if I don't keep trying!
anthonybsd 11y ago
I think a lot of this depends on the type of personality the person has. I've worked in open offices my entire career (18 years). I've never had trouble zoning out from distractions and concentrating on coding. A good pair of headphones is big help in this regard.
- harryf 11y ago
  With all due respect this argument makes me crazy. So the answer to shitty office environments is drowning it out with noise? I have partial tinnitus thanks to this kind of thinking. And every time you get management to the point where they realize they should change something there's always that one guy saying "where's the problem? Just wear headphones..."
  - bluejekyll 11y ago
    In an ideal world the office environment and layout would allow for people to choose their ideal.
  - anthonybsd 11y ago
    It's not really an argument. It's more of an observation that I've never had an issue. And you don't have to "drown" anything with noise, that's what noise-canceling headphones are for.
    - harryf 11y ago
      In my experience noise cancelling headphones are just as bad for tinnitus - it's not medically clear but try googling "noise cancelling headphones tinnitus" and judge for yourself
- js8 11y ago
  > A good pair of headphones is big help in this regard. I think I am similar to you, I find two pairs of walls a big help.
rogersmith 11y ago
But...but... Collaboration makes us agile! /s
imgabe 11y ago
The collaboration excuse is a red herring. I'm sure some of the managers believe it, but it's not really the point. Office space is leased by the square foot. $/sf/ year. Building a new building is usually budgeted in terms of $/sf. (Aside from some base unavoidable costs, it more or less scales linearly with floor area in terms of square feet.) The fewer square feet you need, the less your lease is, which immediately and directly decreases your overhead and increases your profit margin. Open offices fit more people in fewer square feet. There's a specific dollar amount a manager can point to and say "I'm saving that much money". Maybe the productivity gains of private offices would more than offset the extra cost of needing more space, maybe not. It's not as easily quantifiable. Keep in mind that office leases are often signed for 10+ years and if you're building your own building you're stuck with it for even longer. Plus once you sign a lease you have to pay to build out the office. This can easily cost several million dollars in itself. If you're a manager making this mutli-million dollar decision, are you going to go with the guaranteed overhead savings of minimizing square footage or are you going to risk millions of dollars on a vague promise of maybe increased productivity? Unless your company has the money to spare I don't see any rational person opting for the latter, much as I would rather have a private office myself.
- tdaltonc 11y ago
  As I understand it though, open office is a trend. Your mechanism doesn't explain why there was ever a time without open offices. So what's changed to make office managers more penny-wise, or have there always been "open collaborative offices" just under a different name?
  - aristus 11y ago
    I take it you've never seen a newspaper "bullpen", or a clark's office. :) It comes down to class. Many professions that were once afforded private accommodation are now being downclassed. It's also easier to scale up and down by moving what are essentially picnic tables.
    - vesinisa 11y ago
madengr 11y ago
I'm about finished with the book: http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/ http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/ I have already tuned off my email client, only checking it in the morning and after lunch. Contemplating moving me workstation (computer) into my lab where I can get away from the open (short cubical wall) floor plan. Of course, I am reading HN now, but only because it's taking quite a while to generate Gerbers for a PCB.
- kentt 11y ago
  That looks like a really good book. Thanks for mentioning it. That'll be next of my list of books to read.
lettergram 11y ago
I work in an open office, and would consider myself a knowledge worker. The easiest way to manage it is to work from home, however I also positioned my desk in a corner facing the window (so my back to the room) I also by default put wvery meeting invite to tenative and ubless its absolutely necessary i dont show up. All that has put me at odds with management to a degree. However, im given all the hard problems and churn out solutions. Based on projects completed, im doing the work of 4 employees at the same level. I should also add that I still answer 5 - 20 questions from coworkers a day, and am the go-to guy to fix many issues (so I dont completely shut myself off). This has put me in a position where my manager has hinted that im going to get promoted if I keep it up. Of course the company I work for has "non-management management" i.e. you can become a VP without having to manage people. This lets the anti-social hard-core workers still move up in rank and pay.
- slig 11y ago
  It seems to me that depending on where you're working, being the person that always saves the day and that does the "work of 4 employees at the same level" is a sure way to not get promoted.
  - nucleardog 11y ago
    As long as higher pay doesn't require rank, however, it's a great way to keep pushing your salary upward.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  > This has put me in a position where my manager has hinted that im going to get promoted if I keep it up. You're not going to get promoted. That's just a bullshit game they play to pressure you into putting in more hours. If it ain't in writing, it don't exist.
- verisimilidude 11y ago
  You will not get promoted. As long as you're super valuable in your current role, they only have incentive to keep you put. I got strung along with that bullshit for years at my first job before I learned this lesson. It's not a total loss though. If they do find you valuable, play hard on your salary.
mabbo 11y ago
Fittingly, I'm having trouble focusing on reading this article because the team next to mine is having a conversation. They aren't speaking overly loudly, but there's nothing between me and them so I can hear everything. I have a pair of these to help: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000X6L78/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000X6L78/
- kentt 11y ago
  I brought ear plugs to work in an open office. Apparently, that makes me 'not a team player'.
  - siphor 11y ago
    If you like music, I can't recommend enough Bose qc-25 headphones. They make it so I can actually focus in a noisy environment.
    - mabbo 11y ago
      I can only focus on one stream of words at a time, and can't filter very well. What this means is that if my wife is watching a TV show, I can't have a coherent conversation with her. If guys next to me are talking too loudly (and not rudely it anything, it's just an open office) I have trouble reading. The other result: if music has lyrics, I can't read very well. Headphones like that are great, as long as you appreciate classical or EDM, lol.
      - marak830 11y ago
        I have periods like that, im a huge fan of the japanese shamisen.
      - siphor 11y ago
        I listen to the same playlist over and over again (used to be pandora, but changed to spotify discover weekly). Literally don't hear a single song until i listen to it at the end of the week at home.
tsunamifury 11y ago
First hire good people, then just do whatever your team wants and it'll be the most productive/happy solution. This doesn't have to be some universal human rule. Humans are different. I personally like times collaborating with short sprints alone.
amyjess 11y ago
I work in what might as well be an open plan: I share an office with three other people, and the desks are arranged so none of us have our backs to the wall (at least I get a really nice view of a highway out of the deal, though). The whole company is set up like this, with every 3-4 employees grouped into large offices. It could be worse because I get along with my officemates, but it's easily the worst office arrangement I've been part of. The vulnerability of not having my back to the wall seriously gets to me, and it can get really, really annoying when multiple conversations are taking place at the same time. One of my officemates wears headphones 90% of the time specifically because of this. Before this job, I've worked in cubes, I've had my own office, and I've shared an office with one other. Of all those, I preferred sharing an office with one other, with desks arranged so our backs are to the wall. I had some degree of privacy, but I'm not totally isolated from other people.
- dasmoth 11y ago
  I've recently moved from a 4-5 person office somewhat as you describe to open plan. It's a BIG difference.
poof131 11y ago
People’s obsession with Slack and chat apps (applies to open offices too) seems overly done in Silicon Valley. Career switching from the military to development has been interesting in this regards. The military uses chat, but only when needed—realtime communication is critical and people are distributed geographically. On duty on the carrier keeping track of planes and other issues happening “in country”, chat is great. On the ground in Iraq scheduling airborne assets and keeping track of SF missions, chat is great. But for most things, chat is more of a distraction and slows down the real work. I understand chat if you are working in operations, but for pure development, it feels like a college dorm, more about the community and less about the work, where people still confuse time at the office with getting your work done. After a decade of 70+ hour work weeks, you really appreciate what is work and what isn’t. Building camaraderie is important, but chat probably isn’t the best way. And putting everyones communications in a single channel isn’t helping communication, it’s increasing distraction. In my ideal dev team, you have chat, use it for one-on-one communication, and for anything that is time sensitive which goes into group channels. Anything that not everyone needs to know or isn’t time sensitive should go in an email or a message or a shoulder tap. Cluttering a few group channels with a ton of individual conversations, meaningless alerts, and random banter is downright juvenile and a detriment to productivity. I recognizing that promoting free flowing communication is important, but dorm room chat isn’t the solution.
- niels_olson 11y ago
  > On duty on the carrier keeping track of planes and other issues happening “in country”, chat is great. Very similar observations from 10 years ago and now. And in the hospital, chat has no role. It's curious watching the Dev community obsess about how many things could theoretically do without getting off their butts, and then swear the latest standing desks.
  - kbenson 11y ago
    > It's curious watching the Dev community obsess about how many things could theoretically do without getting off their butt I understand the sentiment, but it's important to consider the people in situations where it's not feasible to meet physically. It's not about "getting off your butt" if you live multiple hours away from the office.
marknutter 11y ago
Is it possible that there's no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem? I get the feeling that if cubicles were still in fashion people would be complaining just as loudly about them as others are complaining about open offices. I think a good balance between the two extremes combined with allowing people to work from home on days they need to focus is the best answer we have to this problem today.
grandalf 11y ago
There's a cultural aspect to collaboration, and an office layout aspect. Culturally, collaboration can be great. Getting someone from sales involved in a product meeting could be revolutionary, or getting a product person on a sales call etc. etc. It's possible to design an open floor plan with plenty of private spaces, but most companies don't do this because the people making the decisions are not introverted enough or their jobs don't involve achieving and maintaining "flow state". Ideas like pair programming have created the misunderstanding that programming should always be done in a social way. There are many times when a problem demands focused thinking, and the ideal office space offers places to do that.
methehack 11y ago
I find that the asynchronous nature of chat programs can actually help this problem. Email takes too much time because it's overly formal. Meetings, well, don't get me started. But asynchronous chat is a pretty good balance of informal, prompt enough, and not overly intrusive. ymmv.
zachrose 11y ago
It's one thing to put multiple people on the same task or question and have a focused, active collaboration. This would include things like brainstorming and pair programming. It's another thing to give people their own tasks but put them in an environment of ambient chatter and real time notifications. This would include things like open floor plans and Slack. (I'm not arguing that these things are bad, just that they're not genuine collaboration.) It's pretty easy to make an office look and feel like a collaborative space. It's quite a bit harder to find a few tasks that would benefit from real collaboration and invest double or triple the "hourly rate" for that one thing. Then again, maybe it's totally worth the cost?
kjaer 11y ago
Huh, the website won't show you any content if you're blocking cookie request notifications. You need to disable your adblock / cookie notification remover to be able to allow the site to use cookies, and only then will it show you the article. Goes to show how ridiculous this EU law is...
- kuschku 11y ago
  Well, the EU law only is about tracking cookies. Technical cookies are always allowed – like, a sign-in cookie is automatically allowed if you click "sign in". That means 99% of websites don’t need a cookie warning.
  - kjaer 11y ago
    Far more than 1% of sites use Google Analytics, or similar services. I don't get why this wasn't mandated as a native browser notification, or something else that is opt-out. The worst part is that I block tracking scripts and therefore also cookie notifications, and I still got a blank page. These blocks totally broke the website for me.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  Doesn't it more show how ridiculous the website operators are?
  - kjaer 11y ago
    Good point, that's true. I still believe that it was an error of the European Commission to place the responsibility on the website operators instead of, say, browser vendors.
trjordan 11y ago
My read on pushing collaboration is that it's a hedge against doing the wrong thing. In startups (say, <100 people and in grow-or-die mode), I think you have to focus on producing revenue on a 3-9 month timeframe. If you have a bunch of people working on their own, a lot of them will do things that are valuable, but won't show value to the company for 2-5 years. That not really OK, unless everybody agrees it's OK. So, everybody collaborates constantly, so when you do something like run a pen-test before you have a customer with a CISO, there's agreement that it's OK to do it early. Otherwise, you might end up with a bunch of interesting work that doesn't have any coherence, and with only 25 people, that's not enough to sustain a company. Of course, if everybody is working on the right things, and you have manager drive-bys via Slack/email/daily standups 3 times a day, that's a separate issue. It's the fear of working on the wrong thing that's motivating that pattern.
DanielBMarkham 11y ago
Gee, another open space rant. We never see enough of that. So let's review what open space helps with. Open space helps with teams working on creative problems. It helps them by allowing them, as a team, to own their collective space in such a way such that they are constantly socially interacting whether they would prefer that or not. The theory is that a group of people, left alone to work physically beside each other on something non-trivial, will eventually work through obstacles that each of them working individually and trying to email would not. In addition, people work through these problems on a non-verbal level, using body language, obfuscation, and all the other social tools that nature has given us to use when dealing with problems as a group (Insert long discussion here) In a room with 80 people all sitting at cafeteria tables? That's not it. In an environment where teams don't have and own separate spaces? That's also not it. Working on a grunt project that doesn't requires a lot of creative problem-solving? Probably not for you -- and your job is in danger of being taken over by robots. Not responsible for truly helping a business problem and instead just being told what to do every day? You might as well work anywhere in the world; office setup isn't going to change anything for you. This is really powerful stuff, and I've seen it make a ton of difference to how teams perform. But like everything else, it's been "re-branded", buzz-worded, adopted-and-extended, and compromised to the point where it's a disaster for a lot of folks. I can't help that. It's still a good idea in many cases. (And, quite frankly, as a developer I'd rather just be left alone to code. I do not care about creative solutions to interesting problems. Unfortunately, the people who pay me? They pay me to work through tough issues, not just try to spend the maximum amount of time in flow.) So it's really getting hard to have an intelligent discussion about this. All the time I hear my friends say "I hate X!" Then I look at what they're doing? It's not X. I'm not sure whether to agree with them or not. I am reminded of the old joke: "Doctor! It hurts when I do this!" "Well, stop doing that."
- st3v3r 11y ago
  You're gonna have to provide some evidence of your assertions, there.
  - DanielBMarkham 11y ago
    I'm providing a definition, not a list of assertions. My point was that the phrase "open office" means so many different things in so many different situations that it's no wonder people suffer under it. The phrase itself has been destroyed as a useful concept. Now it's fair to say that my definition isn't applicable here, but, well, it is my definition. I teach this stuff. I'm sure all the folks making these cattle-call working spaces have their definitions as well. That's fine. It sounds like we need to start disambiguating the concept to prevent more of this cluster-fuckery.
volume 11y ago
I would like to be what appears to be the 1st person on this thread to point out one key idea: we have these things called "laptops" with "wifi" access technology. Typically you should be able to unplug your power cord, stand up and move your feet to quieter areas. My mac laptop also has command-Q technology built into all my programs -- including chat and email. Also I have these things that go over my ears and delivery music.
- gedy 11y ago
  I was very surprised how difficult it was to find _any_ quiet place in our rather large open office. Cafeteria has ping pong and sports TV blasting, conference rooms would be reserved, etc.
- to3m 11y ago
  Laptop ergonomics aren't great, and headphones can damage your hearing. Up to you, of course.
- skewart 11y ago
  That fancy, exotic technology you're describing only works well if you actually have some place quieter to move to, or have music you can blast that you can listen to while working. Not everyone works in an office with spare rooms. And not everyone enjoys listening to metal or house. Cranking up the volume on, say, Erik Satie won't do much to mask background noise.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  These are all shitty solutions for a problem that shouldn't exist.
xyzzy4 11y ago
First of all, forcing collaboration onto people by making them sit together isn't proven to be effective. There is no evidence to show it's in the company's best interests to have an open office environment. Doing it just because Facebook does is cargo cult thinking. Second of all, it's also against the employees' best interests and pursuit of happiness. Employees should ideally want to choose the sort of office they have, and also be able to work from home whenever they want. Having happy employees leads to the highest productivity and employee retention. I've worked in many different environments, and I dislike open office the most.
jm_l 11y ago
The Harvard Business Review reports "an overlap of only 50% between 'the top collaborative contributors in any organisation and those individuals deemed to be the top performers.'" That's a pretty high percentage, if you ask me. I wonder what other traits you could identify in the set of top performers that would be equally or more prevalent. The article seems to equivocate more collaboration with more distraction. These two are perhaps related when policy aims to encourage collaboration through shared office space, Slack, and meetings which interrupt deep work. But let's be clear; collaboration is a good thing and we shouldn't act like it's wrong to encourage it, just that perhaps there are better, less distracting ways to do it.
pbreit 11y ago
I'm shocked that SV ingenuity has ended up at such a horrific solution for office environments. The "open" plan hardly delivers any collaboration either, just a continuous stream of distractions or creepy silence with a room full of headphones. Surely we can do better?
skewart 11y ago
Sadly, there really is a lot of collaboration cargo culting these days. But it's interesting because in the large majority of fields the best outcomes really are in some ways collaborative efforts. The lone genius is actually extremely rare. I'm inclined to say the key to effective collaboration is that it has to be driven entirely by the collaborators, and it is only actively happening for a very small percentage of the time spent on a project. A cargo culting middle manager might think she's helping by setting up hours of meetings with different people to get their "perspective". Those people probably can add value. But the best way to do it is to let the project lead go to them with questions or asking for feedback when they think it makes sense. Management can help by fostering a culture where people are willing and eager to talk to their colleagues when they need help, or to get new ideas. To some extent communication tools can help, but there are other much bigger factors: Don't make people feel like they'll be penalized in performance reviews for not knowing things or needing help. Cultivate a sense of shared ownership of projects and outcomes. Give people maxuimum autonomy over their schedules.
mrcactu5 11y ago
where is this Collaborative overload? Do I live on another planet? These diseases seem to hit only places like Silicon Valley and the like
abalone 11y ago
I really want to figure out which plan is better. I honestly feel that people with bad experiences with open plan get on here and gripe, and it makes open plan sound horrible. But there are bad experiences with offices too. Like rarely interacting with colleagues outside of scheduled meetings. And there's a natural bias towards one's own productivity vs helping the team. Maybe it's just because open plan is more the norm nowadays, now we hear all the downsides of that. But it's worth considering it was adopted in response to the downsides of offices and cubes (shudder), not some shortsighted irrational plot to cut costs at the expense of productivity. One thing I know: If anyone says rarely interacting "sounds great", they shouldn't be trusted. Yes you will absolutely maximize your coding focus. Yes that is an invalid argument. Team collaboration is important too. I suspect that to make either plan work you've got to pair it with a solid culture that shores up its weaknesses: minimize distractions in open plan, fight isolation in offices. My straw man ideal is an open plan that is relatively quiet, but let's you look at each other and leverage body language and enhanced awareness to gague when it's a good moment to interrupt. That's the only way that a whole class of "quick questions" and "crazy ideas" get fielded that would otherwise not cross the interrupt bar of a door-knock or even an IM-ping. And that stuff can be super valuable esp. to a startup team. And it actually can get those handled quicker! But I suspect it has to be paired with a culture of minimizing extended subcritical conversations at your desk and taking them over to separate meeting areas that are less disruptive.
Demoneeri 11y ago
I see a lot of people bitching about meetings. But what about people that their job is to collaborate an be in meetings. For example, I'm a business analyst, my job is to meet with users and devs. Eliciting requirements don't take me that much time. All my time is spent on being on meeting to understand what users want and review with them what have been done and make sure that's what they want. That being said, I always try to make the meeting shorter and people thank me for that.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  Then those people can go be in meetings all they want. Let the rest of us get our work done. I guarantee that they'll have no qualms about leaving at 6, but if we do without getting stuff done cause we spent all afternoon in a pointless meeting, they'll start yelling, and schedule another all afternoon meeting to discuss why we're still behind.
thebouv 11y ago
Most of the office where I am moved to being an open floor plan, with managers getting offices. The main area is quite noisy and I'm glad I'm not over there. Headphones would do me no good -- sure, I like to listen to music while developing, sometimes, but I also just like quiet. Probably lean more towards wanting quiet than music.
grb423 11y ago
When I see a modern-day, first-grade classroom I shudder and am thankful that when I was a kid in the 1970s we had desks in rows facing the teacher. Today there are no desks and everybody sits in a circle on the floor. Primary education: For extroverts, by extroverts.
Futurebot 11y ago
I agree with the article and many of the comments here. I'd add that there's another thing: a one-size-fits-all design. Open plan offices are very good for workers for whom collaboration is constant; I've seen sales, marketing, some ops, and a few other departments who would constantly interact no matter what kind of office layout they had. For work that requires lots of concentration and little collaboration, though, that layout is counterproductive. Companies should start thinking about role needs and the space required to support maximum productivity, rather than just having a single layout because it's easier/cheaper. How about a ring of private offices for those that need it surrounding a shared collaboration space? I worked at one place like with that layout and it worked very well.

154 points by makaimc 11y ago

I've worked in open offices, they made it impossible for me to program, so I spent all day "collaborating" and doing scutwork until everyone went home at 5, then I'd stay til 9 to get the stuff I needed to get done done. I'd never do that again, if a company puts me in a position where I can't work during work hours I simply won't, will raise concerns and if not resolved leave. Life is too short to do 70 hour weeks when you are only getting 30 hours work done.

floppydisk 11y ago
Indeed. One gig I was at consisted of spending 9-5 doing nothing but meetings/groupwork/collaborating/email and dealing with bosses who kept asking why the coding wasn't getting done and behind schedule in one breath while dragging me into a 3hr+ meeting the next. Getting work done meant getting in before the boss, coding as much as possible until the boss showed up, waiting for the boss to leave, then coding again for another 2-3 hours to keep up. It does get ridiculous. The problem is we've turned asynchronous communication and decision making into a near-real time short loop without considering the cognitive costs. Switching from my editor to email, parsing the 30 new messages, identifying the content to reply to and fabricating the correct reply costs the mental software model being used to guide the coding and it takes time to get it back into place. Switch in/out all day and your only bit of peace comes when the email writers go home.
- arielweisberg 11y ago
  If you have 3+ hour meetings that sounds like a bug. Maybe figure out why they take so long or why there are so many and address that. Maybe get fewer people in the meeting? Push as much discussion as possible out of the meeting so it only involves the people who care? More delegation and indirection? Managers and leadership should be showing up to more smaller meetings not front line people showing up to fewer longer meetings. I think a reasonable scheduled meeting budget is averaging 1-1.5 hours per week and that is an upper limit not a target. Unscheduled (as in does not repeat every week at the same time) are something to be avoided for a product development team.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    Sounds nice in theory but the managers set the meeting. What they never seem to realise is a 2 hour meeting with 10 people means they use two hours of their time and 20 hours of their subordinates, most of which is spent waiting for the other 9 to finish. Lots of those managers simply don't see the inefficiency since from their point of view it looks OK.
    - abawany 11y ago
      My theory pertaining to non-technical supervisory staff is that meetings for some fill up an otherwise very empty day. All the technical managers that I have worked for never seemed too eager for meetings - they were too busy building real things to waste time in meetings.
  - matwood 11y ago
    > Maybe get fewer people in the meeting? Push as much discussion as possible out of the meeting so it only involves the people who care? More delegation and indirection? Totally with you here. I also make it mandatory that everyone coming to a meeting read the offline discussion before hand. When someone shows up and we have to summarize the back history again it is selfishly wasting everyones time. I finally started refusing to do it and will leave and tell the PM to reschedule.
  - floppydisk 11y ago
    I think it was part of the management culture and how they got things "done" back in the day. The CEO came from a background where solution finding was sticking people in a war room for hours churning through things to find solutions. That works when you're sitting together analyzing data but not when you're writing the code to create the data being analyzed. It also comes from time valuation. They value their work at $X and my work at $K where X > K so it's oK to burn my $K value because the $X-$K delta is high enough to justify prioritizing their work needs.
  - rqebmm 11y ago
    Yeah, we have an open-office plan, but we've successfully lobbied to have developer meetings largely moved to one day a week, and engineers on important projects get "office hours" to allow for interruptions during a defined time. It's important to separate meeting cultures from open offices.
epalmer 11y ago
We have a hybrid space. Cubes surrounded by white boards. Probably 20feet of whiteboard / associate and a few associates with offices with doors and 10 feet of whiteboard. Doors are seldom closed. We use chat for both my team and with another similar team across campus. We are very aware of the penalty of context switching so the spaces tend to be quiet except when there are operational issues. We use a scrum lite approach (daily stand ups but very lightweight). We agree with the comments here that chat should be used for operational or time and sequence sensitive task coordination. We call quick meetings to collaborate on issues and opportunities right after standup and they tend to last about 10 to 20 minutes at most. These don't occur very often (1 or 2 a week). All of this works very well. We have tuned the space a lot over the years. We also have a small table in the space so we can do demos (big monitor on the wall) or have meetings when we want and not be tied to formal meeting space availability. We maybe have 2 to 3 meetings a week in the space and usually they involve everyone (there are 3 of us). My last gig was at a bank and I had no desk. I had a file cabinet and a shared admin (across maybe 80 people). Was expected to find space to work. I carried my office on my back. At times it was great. I could hide from my associates when I needed to get work done. I had 8 people working for me. But when we needed to collaborate or meet we could hardly ever find quiet space to talk through operational issues. We were never allowed to use chat so when operational problems arose people had to assume I was looking at my email. Net net was I hated this approach. I love what I have now.

fishnchips 11y ago

That resonates a lot with me. A few years back my manager in a big-co with a lofty motto would not allow me to work remotely for a week or two to stay closer to my dying parent. As she pointed out, "a lot of innovation happens at the watercooler".

hire_charts 11y ago
This is just cruel. I hope you left that job.
brooklyndavs 11y ago
Innovation == Talking about what we did that weekend? :) This was cruel and there is no excuse why in 2016 this arrangement couldn't work for a week or two. As a remote member of a mostly onsite team there is some validity that you miss out on the SOCIAL aspects of work (grabbing lunch, hanging out after work from time to time, etc) but the "innovation" on our team is just fine.
verisimilidude 11y ago
You should've quit on the spot. "Jobs come and go, but I only have one/two parents who deserve better, etc. Bye." She would've relented and let you go. I've called this bluff several times in my career and I've never lost. But of course, you don't want to work for someone like that in the first place, if you can help it.
- ashark 11y ago
  My outlook on life has improved since I recognized that we're in an industry and a time that allows us to re-phrase requests like "I'd like to work remotely for a while to be near my parents in a time of need, please" as a statement of fact: "I'm going to work remotely for a while to be near my parents in a time of need" and simply ignore any attempt to contradict it. This won't last forever—enjoy it while you can. Say no early, say no often!
- fishnchips 11y ago
  It was my first 'real' job and the company was (and still is) considered extremely prestigious in our line of work. So for a junior engineer quitting that job was suboptimal at that stage. I ended up going without permission. Contrary to my expectations I wasn't fired. But was never promoted again, either - no matter how hard I would work for it.

hashkb 11y ago

We can keep writing these articles and reading them and knowing we are right and get nowhere. 1) Say I'm an engineer with a manager who doesn't get it. How can I empathetically (that is, without spontaneously developing a "political performance problem" on my next review) help my manager improve? 2) Say I'm that manager, and I want to improve but meetings and spreadsheets are all I know. What can I do?

zymhan 11y ago
Well one option is that if meetings are shorter and we waste less time on performance-evaluating BS, then the surplus of manager's time will result in less demand for managers. Heaven forfend
- hashkb 11y ago
  Right, but do you schedule a meeting to talk to your manager about it? And when they schedule a series of follow-ups to evaluate the effectiveness of meetings and establish a committee... And oh where's that feature you're working on?
patrickmay 11y ago
> 2) Say I'm that manager, and I want to improve but meetings and spreadsheets are all I know. What can I do? Rethink what it means to be a manager. Your job is to eliminate barriers for your team and protect them from distractions. You shouldn't be one of the distractions.
- wdmeldon 11y ago
  The first manager I had did this explicitly. If he caught sales or marketing talking to the devs, he would ask them what the problem was. It worked well.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  A lot of people say this is the purpose of managers but it seems few actually believe it, especially those who seem to need to actively try to convince people that this is all they're doing. In reality, most non-technical managers of technical staff look down on their subordinates and see themselves as babysitters who need to make sure that those stupid nerds don't waste the company's money, which they've been charged to protect. This results in "removing barriers" by telling everyone to shut up and get back to following directions. Some managers are very sneaky about this and their subordinates often don't realize that's what's happening.

zymhan 11y ago

At my new job, I've really started pushing back against meetings that seem superfluous. Often times I'll find myself saying the same exact thing at 3 different meetings, and it almost never affects anyone else in the room.

hashkb 11y ago
What form does this pushing take? How is it working? I ask because I've failed at this before; managers have great power to defend their habits and processes.
- zymhan 11y ago
  >What form does this pushing take? I've asked my manager specifically what it is I and others are supposed to be getting out of each meeting > How is it working? Well, I only got out of one meeting so far, but I'll be damned if I don't keep trying!

anthonybsd 11y ago

I think a lot of this depends on the type of personality the person has. I've worked in open offices my entire career (18 years). I've never had trouble zoning out from distractions and concentrating on coding. A good pair of headphones is big help in this regard.

harryf 11y ago
With all due respect this argument makes me crazy. So the answer to shitty office environments is drowning it out with noise? I have partial tinnitus thanks to this kind of thinking. And every time you get management to the point where they realize they should change something there's always that one guy saying "where's the problem? Just wear headphones..."
- bluejekyll 11y ago
  In an ideal world the office environment and layout would allow for people to choose their ideal.
- anthonybsd 11y ago
  It's not really an argument. It's more of an observation that I've never had an issue. And you don't have to "drown" anything with noise, that's what noise-canceling headphones are for.
  - harryf 11y ago
    In my experience noise cancelling headphones are just as bad for tinnitus - it's not medically clear but try googling "noise cancelling headphones tinnitus" and judge for yourself
js8 11y ago
> A good pair of headphones is big help in this regard. I think I am similar to you, I find two pairs of walls a big help.

rogersmith 11y ago

But...but... Collaboration makes us agile! /s

imgabe 11y ago

The collaboration excuse is a red herring. I'm sure some of the managers believe it, but it's not really the point. Office space is leased by the square foot. $/sf/ year. Building a new building is usually budgeted in terms of $/sf. (Aside from some base unavoidable costs, it more or less scales linearly with floor area in terms of square feet.) The fewer square feet you need, the less your lease is, which immediately and directly decreases your overhead and increases your profit margin. Open offices fit more people in fewer square feet. There's a specific dollar amount a manager can point to and say "I'm saving that much money". Maybe the productivity gains of private offices would more than offset the extra cost of needing more space, maybe not. It's not as easily quantifiable. Keep in mind that office leases are often signed for 10+ years and if you're building your own building you're stuck with it for even longer. Plus once you sign a lease you have to pay to build out the office. This can easily cost several million dollars in itself. If you're a manager making this mutli-million dollar decision, are you going to go with the guaranteed overhead savings of minimizing square footage or are you going to risk millions of dollars on a vague promise of maybe increased productivity? Unless your company has the money to spare I don't see any rational person opting for the latter, much as I would rather have a private office myself.

tdaltonc 11y ago
As I understand it though, open office is a trend. Your mechanism doesn't explain why there was ever a time without open offices. So what's changed to make office managers more penny-wise, or have there always been "open collaborative offices" just under a different name?
- aristus 11y ago
  I take it you've never seen a newspaper "bullpen", or a clark's office. :) It comes down to class. Many professions that were once afforded private accommodation are now being downclassed. It's also easier to scale up and down by moving what are essentially picnic tables.
  - vesinisa 11y ago

madengr 11y ago

I'm about finished with the book: http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/ http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/ I have already tuned off my email client, only checking it in the morning and after lunch. Contemplating moving me workstation (computer) into my lab where I can get away from the open (short cubical wall) floor plan. Of course, I am reading HN now, but only because it's taking quite a while to generate Gerbers for a PCB.

kentt 11y ago
That looks like a really good book. Thanks for mentioning it. That'll be next of my list of books to read.

lettergram 11y ago

I work in an open office, and would consider myself a knowledge worker. The easiest way to manage it is to work from home, however I also positioned my desk in a corner facing the window (so my back to the room) I also by default put wvery meeting invite to tenative and ubless its absolutely necessary i dont show up. All that has put me at odds with management to a degree. However, im given all the hard problems and churn out solutions. Based on projects completed, im doing the work of 4 employees at the same level. I should also add that I still answer 5 - 20 questions from coworkers a day, and am the go-to guy to fix many issues (so I dont completely shut myself off). This has put me in a position where my manager has hinted that im going to get promoted if I keep it up. Of course the company I work for has "non-management management" i.e. you can become a VP without having to manage people. This lets the anti-social hard-core workers still move up in rank and pay.

slig 11y ago
It seems to me that depending on where you're working, being the person that always saves the day and that does the "work of 4 employees at the same level" is a sure way to not get promoted.
- nucleardog 11y ago
  As long as higher pay doesn't require rank, however, it's a great way to keep pushing your salary upward.
moron4hire 11y ago
> This has put me in a position where my manager has hinted that im going to get promoted if I keep it up. You're not going to get promoted. That's just a bullshit game they play to pressure you into putting in more hours. If it ain't in writing, it don't exist.
verisimilidude 11y ago
You will not get promoted. As long as you're super valuable in your current role, they only have incentive to keep you put. I got strung along with that bullshit for years at my first job before I learned this lesson. It's not a total loss though. If they do find you valuable, play hard on your salary.

mabbo 11y ago

Fittingly, I'm having trouble focusing on reading this article because the team next to mine is having a conversation. They aren't speaking overly loudly, but there's nothing between me and them so I can hear everything. I have a pair of these to help: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000X6L78/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000X6L78/

kentt 11y ago
I brought ear plugs to work in an open office. Apparently, that makes me 'not a team player'.
- siphor 11y ago
  If you like music, I can't recommend enough Bose qc-25 headphones. They make it so I can actually focus in a noisy environment.
  - mabbo 11y ago
    I can only focus on one stream of words at a time, and can't filter very well. What this means is that if my wife is watching a TV show, I can't have a coherent conversation with her. If guys next to me are talking too loudly (and not rudely it anything, it's just an open office) I have trouble reading. The other result: if music has lyrics, I can't read very well. Headphones like that are great, as long as you appreciate classical or EDM, lol.
    - marak830 11y ago
      I have periods like that, im a huge fan of the japanese shamisen.
    - siphor 11y ago
      I listen to the same playlist over and over again (used to be pandora, but changed to spotify discover weekly). Literally don't hear a single song until i listen to it at the end of the week at home.

tsunamifury 11y ago

First hire good people, then just do whatever your team wants and it'll be the most productive/happy solution. This doesn't have to be some universal human rule. Humans are different. I personally like times collaborating with short sprints alone.

amyjess 11y ago

I work in what might as well be an open plan: I share an office with three other people, and the desks are arranged so none of us have our backs to the wall (at least I get a really nice view of a highway out of the deal, though). The whole company is set up like this, with every 3-4 employees grouped into large offices. It could be worse because I get along with my officemates, but it's easily the worst office arrangement I've been part of. The vulnerability of not having my back to the wall seriously gets to me, and it can get really, really annoying when multiple conversations are taking place at the same time. One of my officemates wears headphones 90% of the time specifically because of this. Before this job, I've worked in cubes, I've had my own office, and I've shared an office with one other. Of all those, I preferred sharing an office with one other, with desks arranged so our backs are to the wall. I had some degree of privacy, but I'm not totally isolated from other people.

dasmoth 11y ago
I've recently moved from a 4-5 person office somewhat as you describe to open plan. It's a BIG difference.

poof131 11y ago

People’s obsession with Slack and chat apps (applies to open offices too) seems overly done in Silicon Valley. Career switching from the military to development has been interesting in this regards. The military uses chat, but only when needed—realtime communication is critical and people are distributed geographically. On duty on the carrier keeping track of planes and other issues happening “in country”, chat is great. On the ground in Iraq scheduling airborne assets and keeping track of SF missions, chat is great. But for most things, chat is more of a distraction and slows down the real work. I understand chat if you are working in operations, but for pure development, it feels like a college dorm, more about the community and less about the work, where people still confuse time at the office with getting your work done. After a decade of 70+ hour work weeks, you really appreciate what is work and what isn’t. Building camaraderie is important, but chat probably isn’t the best way. And putting everyones communications in a single channel isn’t helping communication, it’s increasing distraction. In my ideal dev team, you have chat, use it for one-on-one communication, and for anything that is time sensitive which goes into group channels. Anything that not everyone needs to know or isn’t time sensitive should go in an email or a message or a shoulder tap. Cluttering a few group channels with a ton of individual conversations, meaningless alerts, and random banter is downright juvenile and a detriment to productivity. I recognizing that promoting free flowing communication is important, but dorm room chat isn’t the solution.

niels_olson 11y ago
> On duty on the carrier keeping track of planes and other issues happening “in country”, chat is great. Very similar observations from 10 years ago and now. And in the hospital, chat has no role. It's curious watching the Dev community obsess about how many things could theoretically do without getting off their butts, and then swear the latest standing desks.
- kbenson 11y ago
  > It's curious watching the Dev community obsess about how many things could theoretically do without getting off their butt I understand the sentiment, but it's important to consider the people in situations where it's not feasible to meet physically. It's not about "getting off your butt" if you live multiple hours away from the office.

marknutter 11y ago

Is it possible that there's no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem? I get the feeling that if cubicles were still in fashion people would be complaining just as loudly about them as others are complaining about open offices. I think a good balance between the two extremes combined with allowing people to work from home on days they need to focus is the best answer we have to this problem today.

grandalf 11y ago

There's a cultural aspect to collaboration, and an office layout aspect. Culturally, collaboration can be great. Getting someone from sales involved in a product meeting could be revolutionary, or getting a product person on a sales call etc. etc. It's possible to design an open floor plan with plenty of private spaces, but most companies don't do this because the people making the decisions are not introverted enough or their jobs don't involve achieving and maintaining "flow state". Ideas like pair programming have created the misunderstanding that programming should always be done in a social way. There are many times when a problem demands focused thinking, and the ideal office space offers places to do that.

methehack 11y ago

I find that the asynchronous nature of chat programs can actually help this problem. Email takes too much time because it's overly formal. Meetings, well, don't get me started. But asynchronous chat is a pretty good balance of informal, prompt enough, and not overly intrusive. ymmv.

zachrose 11y ago

It's one thing to put multiple people on the same task or question and have a focused, active collaboration. This would include things like brainstorming and pair programming. It's another thing to give people their own tasks but put them in an environment of ambient chatter and real time notifications. This would include things like open floor plans and Slack. (I'm not arguing that these things are bad, just that they're not genuine collaboration.) It's pretty easy to make an office look and feel like a collaborative space. It's quite a bit harder to find a few tasks that would benefit from real collaboration and invest double or triple the "hourly rate" for that one thing. Then again, maybe it's totally worth the cost?

kjaer 11y ago

Huh, the website won't show you any content if you're blocking cookie request notifications. You need to disable your adblock / cookie notification remover to be able to allow the site to use cookies, and only then will it show you the article. Goes to show how ridiculous this EU law is...

kuschku 11y ago
Well, the EU law only is about tracking cookies. Technical cookies are always allowed – like, a sign-in cookie is automatically allowed if you click "sign in". That means 99% of websites don’t need a cookie warning.
- kjaer 11y ago
  Far more than 1% of sites use Google Analytics, or similar services. I don't get why this wasn't mandated as a native browser notification, or something else that is opt-out. The worst part is that I block tracking scripts and therefore also cookie notifications, and I still got a blank page. These blocks totally broke the website for me.
st3v3r 11y ago
Doesn't it more show how ridiculous the website operators are?
- kjaer 11y ago
  Good point, that's true. I still believe that it was an error of the European Commission to place the responsibility on the website operators instead of, say, browser vendors.

trjordan 11y ago

My read on pushing collaboration is that it's a hedge against doing the wrong thing. In startups (say, <100 people and in grow-or-die mode), I think you have to focus on producing revenue on a 3-9 month timeframe. If you have a bunch of people working on their own, a lot of them will do things that are valuable, but won't show value to the company for 2-5 years. That not really OK, unless everybody agrees it's OK. So, everybody collaborates constantly, so when you do something like run a pen-test before you have a customer with a CISO, there's agreement that it's OK to do it early. Otherwise, you might end up with a bunch of interesting work that doesn't have any coherence, and with only 25 people, that's not enough to sustain a company. Of course, if everybody is working on the right things, and you have manager drive-bys via Slack/email/daily standups 3 times a day, that's a separate issue. It's the fear of working on the wrong thing that's motivating that pattern.

DanielBMarkham 11y ago

Gee, another open space rant. We never see enough of that. So let's review what open space helps with. Open space helps with teams working on creative problems. It helps them by allowing them, as a team, to own their collective space in such a way such that they are constantly socially interacting whether they would prefer that or not. The theory is that a group of people, left alone to work physically beside each other on something non-trivial, will eventually work through obstacles that each of them working individually and trying to email would not. In addition, people work through these problems on a non-verbal level, using body language, obfuscation, and all the other social tools that nature has given us to use when dealing with problems as a group (Insert long discussion here) In a room with 80 people all sitting at cafeteria tables? That's not it. In an environment where teams don't have and own separate spaces? That's also not it. Working on a grunt project that doesn't requires a lot of creative problem-solving? Probably not for you -- and your job is in danger of being taken over by robots. Not responsible for truly helping a business problem and instead just being told what to do every day? You might as well work anywhere in the world; office setup isn't going to change anything for you. This is really powerful stuff, and I've seen it make a ton of difference to how teams perform. But like everything else, it's been "re-branded", buzz-worded, adopted-and-extended, and compromised to the point where it's a disaster for a lot of folks. I can't help that. It's still a good idea in many cases. (And, quite frankly, as a developer I'd rather just be left alone to code. I do not care about creative solutions to interesting problems. Unfortunately, the people who pay me? They pay me to work through tough issues, not just try to spend the maximum amount of time in flow.) So it's really getting hard to have an intelligent discussion about this. All the time I hear my friends say "I hate X!" Then I look at what they're doing? It's not X. I'm not sure whether to agree with them or not. I am reminded of the old joke: "Doctor! It hurts when I do this!" "Well, stop doing that."

st3v3r 11y ago
You're gonna have to provide some evidence of your assertions, there.
- DanielBMarkham 11y ago
  I'm providing a definition, not a list of assertions. My point was that the phrase "open office" means so many different things in so many different situations that it's no wonder people suffer under it. The phrase itself has been destroyed as a useful concept. Now it's fair to say that my definition isn't applicable here, but, well, it is my definition. I teach this stuff. I'm sure all the folks making these cattle-call working spaces have their definitions as well. That's fine. It sounds like we need to start disambiguating the concept to prevent more of this cluster-fuckery.

volume 11y ago

I would like to be what appears to be the 1st person on this thread to point out one key idea: we have these things called "laptops" with "wifi" access technology. Typically you should be able to unplug your power cord, stand up and move your feet to quieter areas. My mac laptop also has command-Q technology built into all my programs -- including chat and email. Also I have these things that go over my ears and delivery music.

gedy 11y ago
I was very surprised how difficult it was to find _any_ quiet place in our rather large open office. Cafeteria has ping pong and sports TV blasting, conference rooms would be reserved, etc.
to3m 11y ago
Laptop ergonomics aren't great, and headphones can damage your hearing. Up to you, of course.
skewart 11y ago
That fancy, exotic technology you're describing only works well if you actually have some place quieter to move to, or have music you can blast that you can listen to while working. Not everyone works in an office with spare rooms. And not everyone enjoys listening to metal or house. Cranking up the volume on, say, Erik Satie won't do much to mask background noise.
st3v3r 11y ago
These are all shitty solutions for a problem that shouldn't exist.

xyzzy4 11y ago

First of all, forcing collaboration onto people by making them sit together isn't proven to be effective. There is no evidence to show it's in the company's best interests to have an open office environment. Doing it just because Facebook does is cargo cult thinking. Second of all, it's also against the employees' best interests and pursuit of happiness. Employees should ideally want to choose the sort of office they have, and also be able to work from home whenever they want. Having happy employees leads to the highest productivity and employee retention. I've worked in many different environments, and I dislike open office the most.

jm_l 11y ago

The Harvard Business Review reports "an overlap of only 50% between 'the top collaborative contributors in any organisation and those individuals deemed to be the top performers.'" That's a pretty high percentage, if you ask me. I wonder what other traits you could identify in the set of top performers that would be equally or more prevalent. The article seems to equivocate more collaboration with more distraction. These two are perhaps related when policy aims to encourage collaboration through shared office space, Slack, and meetings which interrupt deep work. But let's be clear; collaboration is a good thing and we shouldn't act like it's wrong to encourage it, just that perhaps there are better, less distracting ways to do it.

pbreit 11y ago

I'm shocked that SV ingenuity has ended up at such a horrific solution for office environments. The "open" plan hardly delivers any collaboration either, just a continuous stream of distractions or creepy silence with a room full of headphones. Surely we can do better?

skewart 11y ago

Sadly, there really is a lot of collaboration cargo culting these days. But it's interesting because in the large majority of fields the best outcomes really are in some ways collaborative efforts. The lone genius is actually extremely rare. I'm inclined to say the key to effective collaboration is that it has to be driven entirely by the collaborators, and it is only actively happening for a very small percentage of the time spent on a project. A cargo culting middle manager might think she's helping by setting up hours of meetings with different people to get their "perspective". Those people probably can add value. But the best way to do it is to let the project lead go to them with questions or asking for feedback when they think it makes sense. Management can help by fostering a culture where people are willing and eager to talk to their colleagues when they need help, or to get new ideas. To some extent communication tools can help, but there are other much bigger factors: Don't make people feel like they'll be penalized in performance reviews for not knowing things or needing help. Cultivate a sense of shared ownership of projects and outcomes. Give people maxuimum autonomy over their schedules.

mrcactu5 11y ago

where is this Collaborative overload? Do I live on another planet? These diseases seem to hit only places like Silicon Valley and the like

abalone 11y ago

I really want to figure out which plan is better. I honestly feel that people with bad experiences with open plan get on here and gripe, and it makes open plan sound horrible. But there are bad experiences with offices too. Like rarely interacting with colleagues outside of scheduled meetings. And there's a natural bias towards one's own productivity vs helping the team. Maybe it's just because open plan is more the norm nowadays, now we hear all the downsides of that. But it's worth considering it was adopted in response to the downsides of offices and cubes (shudder), not some shortsighted irrational plot to cut costs at the expense of productivity. One thing I know: If anyone says rarely interacting "sounds great", they shouldn't be trusted. Yes you will absolutely maximize your coding focus. Yes that is an invalid argument. Team collaboration is important too. I suspect that to make either plan work you've got to pair it with a solid culture that shores up its weaknesses: minimize distractions in open plan, fight isolation in offices. My straw man ideal is an open plan that is relatively quiet, but let's you look at each other and leverage body language and enhanced awareness to gague when it's a good moment to interrupt. That's the only way that a whole class of "quick questions" and "crazy ideas" get fielded that would otherwise not cross the interrupt bar of a door-knock or even an IM-ping. And that stuff can be super valuable esp. to a startup team. And it actually can get those handled quicker! But I suspect it has to be paired with a culture of minimizing extended subcritical conversations at your desk and taking them over to separate meeting areas that are less disruptive.

Demoneeri 11y ago

I see a lot of people bitching about meetings. But what about people that their job is to collaborate an be in meetings. For example, I'm a business analyst, my job is to meet with users and devs. Eliciting requirements don't take me that much time. All my time is spent on being on meeting to understand what users want and review with them what have been done and make sure that's what they want. That being said, I always try to make the meeting shorter and people thank me for that.

st3v3r 11y ago
Then those people can go be in meetings all they want. Let the rest of us get our work done. I guarantee that they'll have no qualms about leaving at 6, but if we do without getting stuff done cause we spent all afternoon in a pointless meeting, they'll start yelling, and schedule another all afternoon meeting to discuss why we're still behind.

thebouv 11y ago

Most of the office where I am moved to being an open floor plan, with managers getting offices. The main area is quite noisy and I'm glad I'm not over there. Headphones would do me no good -- sure, I like to listen to music while developing, sometimes, but I also just like quiet. Probably lean more towards wanting quiet than music.

grb423 11y ago

When I see a modern-day, first-grade classroom I shudder and am thankful that when I was a kid in the 1970s we had desks in rows facing the teacher. Today there are no desks and everybody sits in a circle on the floor. Primary education: For extroverts, by extroverts.

Futurebot 11y ago

I agree with the article and many of the comments here. I'd add that there's another thing: a one-size-fits-all design. Open plan offices are very good for workers for whom collaboration is constant; I've seen sales, marketing, some ops, and a few other departments who would constantly interact no matter what kind of office layout they had. For work that requires lots of concentration and little collaboration, though, that layout is counterproductive. Companies should start thinking about role needs and the space required to support maximum productivity, rather than just having a single layout because it's easier/cheaper. How about a ring of private offices for those that need it surrounding a shared collaboration space? I worked at one place like with that layout and it worked very well.