4 ms·

>It's easy to walk into someone's office and have a discussion. Certainly less easy than joining in on a conversation you overhear while sitting at your desk.

by yakult 9y ago

>It's easy to walk into someone's office and have a discussion. Certainly less easy than joining in on a conversation you overhear while sitting at your desk. What we have here is disgreement over the optimal 'activation energy' for social interactions that produces the best work. This parameter depends on all kinds of factors, e.g. the type of work and work culture. What we need is a workflow that optimizes this parameter for a given office. IOW, somebody needs to come up with a cost function and run gradient descent on it.

gfodor 9y ago
It's a little out there, but I think VR workspaces will potentially provide such a method. Currently the iteration cost is too high. (For example it could involve rearranging desks, tearing down walls, buying equipment, etc.) VR opens the door to a malleable workspace that still comes close to pairty with face to face communications (it is not there today but most likely will be in a few generations.)
- yakult 9y ago
  For large companies, I can imagine using new branch offices for a/b testing. A while ago I read a comment here about a university that, instead of paving roads to a new campus, just had grass everywhere. A semester later they paved over all the parts where the grass died from all the foot traffic. I wonder if something like that would be workable? Have easily reconfigurable panels and furniture, encourage the staff to arrange it however they like, wait six months, then standardize/remove pain points/make permanent?
  - benji-york 9y ago
    That's an interesting thought. Here's another: why standardize? Each team's needs are likely to be different and may change over time.
still_grokking 9y ago
>>It's easy to walk into someone's office and have a discussion. >Certainly less easy than joining in on a conversation you overhear while sitting at your desk. If you overhear a conversation and even understand what it is about you clearly aren't focused on your(!) work. So you are in an unproductive state. It's not your duty to think about other peoples problems. If they can't manage it without help they have to ask you (or everybody, in an broadcast) explicitly over an asynchronous communication channel. There is also no question about whether disturbances are good or bad: They lower productivity and induce stress. This things were shown many times by different scientific studies. This point isn't for debate. If you want productive cooperation, you have only to encourage people to ask when they are stuck, and also encourage people being as helpful as possible when they are actually asked something. I think that's the true magic formula.
- kaishiro 9y ago
  I cannot speak for yakult, but be careful with generalizations like: > If you overhear a conversation and even understand what it is about you clearly aren't focused on your(!) work. So you are in an unproductive state. I find it extremely difficult to work alone in an office. When I was still agency-side, before we moved to open workspaces I would often go to coffee shops to work because I found it very difficult to focus unless there was a certain level of conversational white noise. Once we finally did make the move it was great to be able to jump into a conversation on a project I wasn't a direct stakeholder in just because I had something to add (or vice versa). There are any number of day to day things that aren't covered in stand-ups that simply pop up organically. > There is also no question about whether disturbances are good or bad: They lower productivity and induce stress. This things were shown many times by different scientific studies. This point isn't for debate. Of course there is a question and of course it's open for debate. We know this because we're not all robots - different people are different. Now, that being said, I absolutely agree that open offices aren't for everyone, which is why in my opinion the magic formula isn't to stick everyone alone in a room and say "talk more", but it's to offer a combination of both open spaces and solitary offices to fit the needs of the individual. Just one line dev's two cents.
  - 9y ago
kstenerud 9y ago
>>It's easy to walk into someone's office and have a discussion. >Certainly less easy than joining in on a conversation you overhear while sitting at your desk. Great! No more distracting me with conversations while I'm trying to work! If you want me in the conversation, ask me. Don't take my choice away.
walterstucco 9y ago
> Certainly less easy than joining in on a conversation you overhear while sitting at your desk. Just wait at the coffee machine

by yakult 9y ago

gfodor 9y ago

It's a little out there, but I think VR workspaces will potentially provide such a method. Currently the iteration cost is too high. (For example it could involve rearranging desks, tearing down walls, buying equipment, etc.) VR opens the door to a malleable workspace that still comes close to pairty with face to face communications (it is not there today but most likely will be in a few generations.)

yakult 9y ago
For large companies, I can imagine using new branch offices for a/b testing. A while ago I read a comment here about a university that, instead of paving roads to a new campus, just had grass everywhere. A semester later they paved over all the parts where the grass died from all the foot traffic. I wonder if something like that would be workable? Have easily reconfigurable panels and furniture, encourage the staff to arrange it however they like, wait six months, then standardize/remove pain points/make permanent?
- benji-york 9y ago
  That's an interesting thought. Here's another: why standardize? Each team's needs are likely to be different and may change over time.

still_grokking 9y ago

>>It's easy to walk into someone's office and have a discussion. >Certainly less easy than joining in on a conversation you overhear while sitting at your desk. If you overhear a conversation and even understand what it is about you clearly aren't focused on your(!) work. So you are in an unproductive state. It's not your duty to think about other peoples problems. If they can't manage it without help they have to ask you (or everybody, in an broadcast) explicitly over an asynchronous communication channel. There is also no question about whether disturbances are good or bad: They lower productivity and induce stress. This things were shown many times by different scientific studies. This point isn't for debate. If you want productive cooperation, you have only to encourage people to ask when they are stuck, and also encourage people being as helpful as possible when they are actually asked something. I think that's the true magic formula.

kaishiro 9y ago
I cannot speak for yakult, but be careful with generalizations like: > If you overhear a conversation and even understand what it is about you clearly aren't focused on your(!) work. So you are in an unproductive state. I find it extremely difficult to work alone in an office. When I was still agency-side, before we moved to open workspaces I would often go to coffee shops to work because I found it very difficult to focus unless there was a certain level of conversational white noise. Once we finally did make the move it was great to be able to jump into a conversation on a project I wasn't a direct stakeholder in just because I had something to add (or vice versa). There are any number of day to day things that aren't covered in stand-ups that simply pop up organically. > There is also no question about whether disturbances are good or bad: They lower productivity and induce stress. This things were shown many times by different scientific studies. This point isn't for debate. Of course there is a question and of course it's open for debate. We know this because we're not all robots - different people are different. Now, that being said, I absolutely agree that open offices aren't for everyone, which is why in my opinion the magic formula isn't to stick everyone alone in a room and say "talk more", but it's to offer a combination of both open spaces and solitary offices to fit the needs of the individual. Just one line dev's two cents.
- 9y ago

kstenerud 9y ago

>>It's easy to walk into someone's office and have a discussion. >Certainly less easy than joining in on a conversation you overhear while sitting at your desk. Great! No more distracting me with conversations while I'm trying to work! If you want me in the conversation, ask me. Don't take my choice away.

walterstucco 9y ago

> Certainly less easy than joining in on a conversation you overhear while sitting at your desk. Just wait at the coffee machine