I've been in all kinds of office setups. The one office I had the most collaboration between developers had cubes with a high side wall and the wall between the

I've been in all kinds of office setups. The one office I had the most collaboration between developers had cubes with a high side wall and the wall between the cube behind you was lower. The cubes were very similar to these: https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.sZX3B6yJTUoJHOJ-t_3-TQHaFj&pid=Api https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.sZX3B6yJTUoJHOJ-t_3-TQHaF... At the time, we had a fairly small group. Four front-end devs, three back-end devs, and a two designers. The devs all sat together on one side in a row and the designers on the other side. When the back-end guys had a JS or styling issue, they could just stand up and walk around the desk. If they needed a PM or a designer, they would use the interoffice IM system. We had a ton of back-end and front-end collaboration since we had several large whiteboards on the wall next to our cubes. A lot of time, you would be working and hear two devs talking about a problem. It was easy to just swivel in your chair and see if you had any input or ideas. We solved a lot of issues just with devs overhearing something and chiming in. In the open space I'm in now, people won't even look at you when you're sitting next to them. Everything is done over IM. It's like there's invisible walls around everybody, even though we're all working shoulder to shoulder and on the same team. Our team is scattered throughout the building we're in so in person collaboration is really rare. It's practically the exact opposite of what they were hoping for.