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 problem

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."