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Ask HN: How does the perfect office space look like?

• drrob 9y ago
  I used to work at a place with an ostensibly open-plan office, but with lots of wall panels on wheels that could be moved to form little work areas. These also doubled as white boards. In short: I like modular, configurable workspaces, with lots of whiteboards.
• LeoSolaris 9y ago
  Depends on the type of work being done. If you're looking at a lot of employees that need to do focused work like coding, then you need a place where they can shut their doors, but with adequate meeting space dedicated for their use. As a software engineer, I loathe the open floor plan because I cannot get anything done. (Struggling with that now and actively searching for a new job because of it.) When I was in operations, having an open-ish war room with a few shared displays of monitors where everyone can talk was helpful during a crisis only. That is easily replicated with a good chat software like Slack, if the ops team needs to work around quieter groups. Outside of a crisis, the openness was only useful for gossiping. Of course, outside of a crisis OPs have a much more limited number of jobs because they exist to fix the crisis situations, so the extra chatter really helps the group cohesion under pressure. I would suggest asking your teams to make formal recommendations as teams about their future work space. A command decision, no matter how well grounded in research, will devalue the needs of your people and lead to sub-optimal spaces. They are unique groups, and may not need to follow the "best" industrial patterns. Also, don't let the managers overrun the conversation. Otherwise you will end up with spaces that make it easier to micromanage people rather than get work done. Panopticons, where management are in offices while workers are in highly exposed open spaces, lead to higher turn over every single time. You want spaces where people can work conveniently, not where managers can manage easily.
  • matt_the_bass 9y ago
    I like the idea of soliciting input from your team. You might want to include some budgetary guidance to them as well. Since I’m assuming you don’t have unlimited budget. Have them help you decide how to build it out.
• mchannon 9y ago
  Joel (as in the Joel test) had a worthwhile article about a decade ago, still worth reading: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/12/29/the-new-fog-creek-office/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/12/29/the-new-fog-creek-...
• chatmasta 9y ago
  As evidenced by how heated these discussions tend to get, it really comes down to developer preference. If you can find a way to blend the best of both worlds, and offer your employees some choice of where to work, you’ll be good. Things to consider beyond the obvious questions of cost or distraction/focus: knowledge sharing, mentoring of junior devs, and culture building. The environment you build will fall somewhere on a spectrum of open office, doored single offices, doored shared offices, or open offices with “pods.” Consider the tradeoffs of all these (and ask your employees for their input!) before making your decision.
• SirLJ 9y ago
  Give the people the option to work from home and welcome them to the 21st century... this is the best office space by far...
  • matt_the_bass 9y ago
    Maybe the “best office space by far” in your opinion. But I’m certain many (including me) disagree. I think it is valid to offer as a possible option to consider regarding the original question. But not with the label as “the best”. Personally I like the option of working remote sometimes but I don’t feel productive when remote for most activities. I feel productive in my office. I also find value in the irl interaction with co-workers. But we also have offices with max 2 people (3 for interns). So there is already lots of privacy and quiet at the office.
    • SirLJ 9y ago
      Not sure how many would prefer going to the office every day... from all people working (and worked) for me, not a single one...
• farnsworthy 9y ago
  If you were leaning towards an open space, I'd suggest including private rooms somewhere in the plan as well (and not dinging people for wanting to ensconce themselves therein).
• eb0la 9y ago
  A combination of open and closed areas: Closed areas for meetings, calling, and deep concentration. Open areas for side-by-side coding and colaboration. Usually marketing and sales can work anywhere: give'em an open space. Also give them a closed place where they can call confidentially a client without developers/pm hear them. Project managers are similar, put them near sales and development teams. Devs need to remain focused for 1-2h runs, and might need to do pair programming or just get help. If you bring them an open space, gift them with deep concentration cabins, and/or meeting rooms for 2-3 people. Sysadmins need something with a door to make some friction between the team and them. Otherwise people passing by will ask them anything possible. If you don't have such space they will migrate silently to the datacenter. Data scientist need absolute silence. Closed spaces, rooms, etc will work. If the place is not quiet enough consider renting some space at the nearest churh and install wifi there (not kidding).
• Gustomaximus 9y ago
  I've always liked the glass office thing. Seems a good balance between privacy and noise reduction but open so you can see each other and whats going on. Make make eye contact to communicate visually etc.
  • dasmoth 9y ago
    While there are better than open plan (and sometimes the only way to get small offices which still receive a bit of natural light) they’re still a pain if you find motion in your peripheral vision distracting. Frosted glass helps.
• kzisme 9y ago
  As most people are saying a balance between open and closed space would be nice. For me personally I find that the temperature of the room/building is important. At my office people continually turn up the thermostat to 75-80F. Aside from that giving employees enough room to turn around in their chair is decently important in my opinion . In my current setup (I call it the sweat shop setup) I'm not able to turn around or get out of my chair without bumping into my co-worker behind me. Lastly - one thing that happened at my office was the installation of over-head speakers (think department store style) that constantly streamed Pandora. Please don't do that as it's annoying.
• codegladiator 9y ago
  Coffee machine is good to have.
• chris11 9y ago
  I've liked the idea of a hub-and-spoke model. I don't particularly like the idea of open offices, but does make communication easier sometimes. The idea of a hub-and-spoke space is that individuals have their own private work space, but are forced to go through one common space to enter their office. So for instance, maybe all the engineers would have to use one hallway, which would branch out to specific team meeting rooms, and then the individual offices would be attached to those team meeting rooms. So the offices would let engineers have private work spaces, but the common areas would make it really easy to have random conversations with other engineers about work and tech. https://www.archdaily.com/884192/why-open-plan-offices-dont-work-and-some-alternatives-that-do https://www.archdaily.com/884192/why-open-plan-offices-dont-... Cal Newport also writes a lot about creative work, deep work, and how office layout influences productivity. http://calnewport.com/blog/ http://calnewport.com/blog/
  • jon-wood 9y ago
    Pixar's offices were designed around this principle, with everywhere being accessed through a large central hall designed to encourage interaction. https://officesnapshots.com/2012/07/16/pixar-headquarters-and-the-legacy-of-steve-jobs/ https://officesnapshots.com/2012/07/16/pixar-headquarters-an...
• partisan 9y ago
  The best office I have worked in had cubicles with tall walls and overhead cabinetry. The cubicle was large enough to move around in and could support one other person sitting looking over my shoulder. We had a small conference area with small table and whiteboard that didn't see much action. We also had a large conference room with a real wood desk. The managers had the three offices that surrounded the three rows. This was a team of 16 devs and QA and dba, 2 managers, and a CIO. Remote workers would come in and grab a free cubicle or take the group area when no free cubes were available.