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> Have there been any studies on what kind of office floor plans are actually optimal for work? It's hard - every study of individuals shows they are significa

> Have there been any studies on what kind of office floor plans are actually optimal for work? It's hard - every study of individuals shows they are significantly less productive in an open office environment. But what second order effects are there? You might be less productive individually but it might encourage team work and make the team as a whole more effective.

fsloth 9y ago
"You might be less productive individually but it might encourage team work and make the team as a whole more effective." Team room is not an open office. Open office is a place where a number of teams congregate. And open offices generally seem to hurt even team work, so the only thing speaking for an open office is that it's cheaper. Any other 'advantages' are just marketing by consultants whose business is to develop open offices and site managers (or the corresponding financially responsible party) who want to save on their budget. If you are employing fairly expensive software engineers I'm not sure you should implement savings on a less expensive resource that will just devalue the output from your expensive resource. http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170105-open-offices-are-damaging-our-memories http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170105-open-offices-are-d...
tbrownaw 9y ago
So where does all that supposed extra productivity come from? How does something get done, without any individual having done it?
- VLM 9y ago
  Distraction workers like managers measure productivity in issues handled and amount of talking. By definition they don't do things, things don't get done. This is maximized in an open office. Knowledge workers like devs (mostly) measure productivity by things getting done. Usually things getting done involves one individual passing unit tests and committing the corresponding working code, not turning every minor issue into a massive teambuilding exercise of endless talking and no doing. This kind of productivity is minimized in an open office. Its a classic talk about it vs do something about it argument. Both extremes are pretty bad, unfortunately at this moment in the industry we're at one extreme swing of the pendulum.
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  The hardest thing in business is not getting things done, it's getting the right things done. A team that is a bit slower, but produces a product/service that is a lot closer to what customers want, is probably going to win. If an open office plan helps a team develop a more on-target product, even if that happens a bit slower, it could still be a win.

fsloth 9y ago

"You might be less productive individually but it might encourage team work and make the team as a whole more effective." Team room is not an open office. Open office is a place where a number of teams congregate. And open offices generally seem to hurt even team work, so the only thing speaking for an open office is that it's cheaper. Any other 'advantages' are just marketing by consultants whose business is to develop open offices and site managers (or the corresponding financially responsible party) who want to save on their budget. If you are employing fairly expensive software engineers I'm not sure you should implement savings on a less expensive resource that will just devalue the output from your expensive resource. http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170105-open-offices-are-damaging-our-memories http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170105-open-offices-are-d...

tbrownaw 9y ago

So where does all that supposed extra productivity come from? How does something get done, without any individual having done it?

VLM 9y ago
Distraction workers like managers measure productivity in issues handled and amount of talking. By definition they don't do things, things don't get done. This is maximized in an open office. Knowledge workers like devs (mostly) measure productivity by things getting done. Usually things getting done involves one individual passing unit tests and committing the corresponding working code, not turning every minor issue into a massive teambuilding exercise of endless talking and no doing. This kind of productivity is minimized in an open office. Its a classic talk about it vs do something about it argument. Both extremes are pretty bad, unfortunately at this moment in the industry we're at one extreme swing of the pendulum.
snowwrestler 9y ago
The hardest thing in business is not getting things done, it's getting the right things done. A team that is a bit slower, but produces a product/service that is a lot closer to what customers want, is probably going to win. If an open office plan helps a team develop a more on-target product, even if that happens a bit slower, it could still be a win.