4 ms·
I still can't understand the impetus behind open plan. It's abominable.
by beedogs 10y ago
I still can't understand the impetus behind open plan. It's abominable.
- pshc 10y agoTheory I heard: We're stuck with open plan due to the ratchet effect. The high price of office square footage in cities locks it in.
- jsymolon 10y agoCheaper than partitions which was cheaper than permanent construction.
- EliRivers 10y agoIt's cheap, and at one point it was hip.
- krylon 10y agoWith the right combination of people, it can actually be quite fun and encourage communication, IMHO. However, if people have to make or take phone calls, it can become really annoying quickly. Try to focus with two or three people sitting around you talking on the phone. Especially if one or more of these people talk to people who are on construction sites or inside industrial plants, so you have to talk rather loudly so they can understand you... On a few occasions (rarely, though), I have just put on headphones and listened to white noise to drown out their talking.
- vonmoltke 10y agoThe right combination of people doing the right combination of work. One of the ostensible purposes of open plans is to facilitate communication and collaboration. Unfortunately, every collaboration session throws off those around who are not involved.
- vollmond 10y agoThat's why I like open plan in small spaces -- IE, a conference room with 4-8 desks in it for a single agile team. All business-related conversations probably apply to all or most of the team anyway, and at least for a development team the phone chatter will probably be minimal. The walls keep you from distracting unrelated employees with your discussions, but the openness keeps the highly-relevant people in the loop.
- vonmoltke 10y agoI have yet to see or work at a company organized like this. Usually it's dozens of people from multiple teams commingled in a single large room. Where I work now the entire company only has 8 people, but we have 5 different projects going on, of which I am only involved in 2.
- VLM 10y agoIts to signal low social status. They might hate having to pay a lot of money, but they'll find a way to get even.
- avs733 10y agoAssumptions about how culture is built Peter Drucker is often attributed the quote "Culture eats strategy for breakfast". For some reason many organizations seem to believe that in the modern office, furniture will eat culture and turn it into an Aeron chair clone.
- gjvc 10y ago"Culture eats strategy for breakfast". -- brilliant.
- mrweasel 10y agoIt's extremely cheap to built and operate. Cleaning one large office is fast and hence cheaper, than 10 smaller offices. Often the "lost productivity" isn't factored into the cost of open plan offices, mostly because it's to complex I think. Interestingly the gain from better communication is always factored in as a positive. I do know people that prefer open plan offices. They all have headphone on for a large part of the day though. People that prefer an eerie silence, like myself, aren't normally not considered when planning office building.
- blacksmythe 10y ago>> It's extremely cheap to built and operate. The cost of the facility is inconsequential compared to the efficiency of the developers working there.
- Grishnakh 10y agoI actually wish, every day, that I had never gone into engineering or programming, and had chosen a profession that was more solitary.