Back when I worked in a place where everyone having an office was common it was probably the peak level of collaboration I've experienced in my career. When eve

Back when I worked in a place where everyone having an office was common it was probably the peak level of collaboration I've experienced in my career. When everyone has an office it's easy to have small meetings with people (either scheduled or impromptu), and small meetings are where a lot of stuff can get done. You can gain and exchange context effectively, you can safely talk about institutional problems, even heavily critically, without worrying about what management might think, you can easily cover multiple topics because you don't have to worry about keeping your talk short or on an agenda (which is more of an imperative if you are having a chat in an open plan office or having a planned meeting in a conference room). You can also develop camaraderie and friendship more easily because you don't have to worry about your talk about "trivial" things (like tv or video games or whatever) interrupting everyone within earshot.j P.S. One of the most fantastic things about offices is learning from your peers. This doesn't happen to the same degree in open plan office that I can see, but with the privacy of offices it's much easier to have a conversation open up into talk about various subjects. And those can take the form of a lecture (here's how this system/algorithm/process/whatever works) or a conversation (here's an opinion I want to share about the fundamentals of software development, or such-like). That sort of thing is pure gold in terms of personal development and career advancement, it not only shares knowledge between people and opens up people's eyes to different takes on "the craft" in general, but it clues people in to the idea that it is worth caring about and thinking about fundamental questions like best practices, people management, interpersonal relationships, and so on. Some of the best and most lasting insights and advice I've had in my career have come from impromptu conversations in offices with small groups of people.