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I just want to remind folks that there are, in fact, organizations for whom the open plan actually works. I've spent the last few years practicing XP, on a coll

I just want to remind folks that there are, in fact, organizations for whom the open plan actually works. I've spent the last few years practicing XP, on a collaborative team that includes PM, UX, QA, and devs, and we work in an open plan with no complaints. We find that it REALLY helps us minimize meetings and email/Slack since we can quickly turn to the person we need, ask our question, get an answer, and get back to work. As a developer it's hugely refreshing to be able to easily ask for advice or input from the rest of the dev team in a rapid way. The reason I mention this anecdote is not to dispute any of the studies... I understand the difference between anecdotal evidence and quantitative evidence. Just a counter-point to the inevitable echo chamber of complaints about open floor plans being inhumane, a money-grab, etc etc.

ta2987 8y ago
How do you actually get any work done?
- nine_k 8y ago
  Answering a question in person likely breaks your concentration for a few minutes. Having to wait for 5-10 minutes for an answer in Slack breaks the concentration of the person asking the question, _and_ your concentration because you still need to get distracted and answer the question. Async communication is great in many cases, likely most cases. Sync communication does have important uses, though.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    Answering a question in person likely breaks your concentration for a few minutes. I'm going to argue that their concentration is already broken because there's a problem, needing remediation and help from a colleague on to the point of bothering to ask in the first place. And if you're sitting three feet away from me, I'm sorry but I'd much rather just flip around, ask if you have a minute, answer the question, and drive closer to the desired team outcome. Change my mind.
    - nine_k 8y ago
      This is exactly what I'm saying. In the case of a quick question, in-person communication is more efficient for both sides. Doing the same thing async has a noticeably higher overhead.
      - silverbax88 8y ago
        There is almost no scenario where interrupting a developer in person is better than sending them an IM that they can respond to later. The only reason would be actual urgency (not the pretend emergencies that businesses claim, either).
        dvtrn 8y ago
        As an individual, what you say your ratio is of "Sure I can help now" to "I'll help you later" when a colleague asks for help? Merely curious.
        mlthoughts2018 8y ago
        I think the point is that you should assume most engineers need large uninterrupted blocks most of the time most days. It’s not about a ratio of one to the other, it’s about needing 5-hour segments of time in which nobody asks you anything at all and you don’t have to say “sure I can help now” or “I’ll help you later” because you don’t need to say anything when you’re not interrupted. Saying “I’ll help you later” usually comes with 5-15 minutes of lost productivity while you try to get your concentration back for what you were just doing. Also, it’s often better to bundle questions together, usually at the end of the day, and document them like with an internal Q&A board, to reduce future needs to interrupt over that same question. But, to put some number on this, I’d say later in the afternoon, if I’m not busy for a deadline, I’ll jump up and help on all questions. Between 7 am and lunch, I will not help you unless it’s an absolute emergency. I simply can’t afford to if I am going to do my job. Between lunch and 4pm, say, it’s a crapshoot based on what I’m doing, but generally I would say I respond with “I’ll help you later” to 90% of interrupting questions. Interestingly, on my year end reviews one of the most consistent pieces of positive feedback I’ve gotten across several different employers, is that I am extremely helpful and generous with explaining things, and that my explanations are usually exceptionally clear and offer insight that quickly clears up confusion and leaves impressive documentation behind for people to reference later. It’s about communicating smart, not communicating constantly. I defer about 90% of the questions I’m asked, yet people look to me as “the guy who always answers everybody’s questions.”
dvtrn 8y ago
We find that it REALLY helps us minimize meetings and email/Slack since we can quickly turn to the person we need, ask our question, get an answer, and get back to work. Someone downvoted me in another thread about open-offices because I do this. A coworker who sits three feet away often pings me multiple times a day with questions that are much easier answered by turning around, wheeling over pointing to a few things on their screen, explaining how they related and wheeling back over. They said "I was part of the problem". Because it's quicker to turn around and have a human conversation with someone sitting a yard away than type, take screenshots, and beam them over the network?
- watwut 8y ago
  Cause slack does not interrupt while I am focused while your question does interrupt while I am focused. It takes effort and time to get back to focused state. Frequent random interrupts kill productivity. So, while it is making you faster, it is killing focus and productivity of the person you are asking to. Which is fine as long as the other person does not have deadline or other need to produce more.
  - fossuser 8y ago
    They’re answering questions, not asking them.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    it is killing focus and productivity of the person you are asking to. At the expense of mine by asking me a question, and asking me for help. Seems rather one-sided, no? A colleague has asked for my help. Their concentration is already broken because there is a problem they need help solving, and probably their work progress is halted because they're unsure what to do about a given problem, and think I am someone who can help them. I genuinely do not understand the objection to whipping around and offering to help that person solve a problem that prevents them from accomplishing a task, project, assignment or obligation. I ask for help understanding the conceit here, that the person who turns around and helps their colleague is at fault of 'breaking someone's concentration' when they were asked to provide help to a coworker.
kevinSuttle 8y ago
> We find that it REALLY helps us minimize meetings and email/Slack since we can quickly turn to the person we need So, it's an all-day, unpredictable meeting?
oblio 8y ago
Sort of related to your username, those are unicorns. Most companies are dysfunctional or barely functional. Why those same companies have 99% of the time open spaces is not a mystery. It's cheap. It's not because XP, pair programming, quick feedback or any other ponies/unicorns, it's because you can cram more people in a smaller place. Oh, and also control. Managers at least have the illusion of direct control or even better, they have a Stasi-like informant network in case someone "misbehaves".
sidlls 8y ago
I'm not big on pretending there aren't real differences with respect to the kinds of work done in this industry. Some engineering is harder than others and open offices simply don't fit all cases. Or even most, per the article.
PurpleRamen 8y ago
The only way for open offices to work is when nobody is doing open work. The major fail of open offices are the constant distractions existing around you. If they don't exist, then of course can it work. Anyway, what you discribe still has a price for your team. You not only break the persons concentration who is asked, instead of giving them the choice to answer when they have free time to concentrate on something new, you also break rise the chance of breaking the concentration of everyone else who is not involved.

ta2987 8y ago

How do you actually get any work done?

nine_k 8y ago
Answering a question in person likely breaks your concentration for a few minutes. Having to wait for 5-10 minutes for an answer in Slack breaks the concentration of the person asking the question, _and_ your concentration because you still need to get distracted and answer the question. Async communication is great in many cases, likely most cases. Sync communication does have important uses, though.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  Answering a question in person likely breaks your concentration for a few minutes. I'm going to argue that their concentration is already broken because there's a problem, needing remediation and help from a colleague on to the point of bothering to ask in the first place. And if you're sitting three feet away from me, I'm sorry but I'd much rather just flip around, ask if you have a minute, answer the question, and drive closer to the desired team outcome. Change my mind.
  - nine_k 8y ago
    This is exactly what I'm saying. In the case of a quick question, in-person communication is more efficient for both sides. Doing the same thing async has a noticeably higher overhead.
    - silverbax88 8y ago
      There is almost no scenario where interrupting a developer in person is better than sending them an IM that they can respond to later. The only reason would be actual urgency (not the pretend emergencies that businesses claim, either).
      - dvtrn 8y ago
        As an individual, what you say your ratio is of "Sure I can help now" to "I'll help you later" when a colleague asks for help? Merely curious.
        mlthoughts2018 8y ago
        I think the point is that you should assume most engineers need large uninterrupted blocks most of the time most days. It’s not about a ratio of one to the other, it’s about needing 5-hour segments of time in which nobody asks you anything at all and you don’t have to say “sure I can help now” or “I’ll help you later” because you don’t need to say anything when you’re not interrupted. Saying “I’ll help you later” usually comes with 5-15 minutes of lost productivity while you try to get your concentration back for what you were just doing. Also, it’s often better to bundle questions together, usually at the end of the day, and document them like with an internal Q&A board, to reduce future needs to interrupt over that same question. But, to put some number on this, I’d say later in the afternoon, if I’m not busy for a deadline, I’ll jump up and help on all questions. Between 7 am and lunch, I will not help you unless it’s an absolute emergency. I simply can’t afford to if I am going to do my job. Between lunch and 4pm, say, it’s a crapshoot based on what I’m doing, but generally I would say I respond with “I’ll help you later” to 90% of interrupting questions. Interestingly, on my year end reviews one of the most consistent pieces of positive feedback I’ve gotten across several different employers, is that I am extremely helpful and generous with explaining things, and that my explanations are usually exceptionally clear and offer insight that quickly clears up confusion and leaves impressive documentation behind for people to reference later. It’s about communicating smart, not communicating constantly. I defer about 90% of the questions I’m asked, yet people look to me as “the guy who always answers everybody’s questions.”

dvtrn 8y ago

We find that it REALLY helps us minimize meetings and email/Slack since we can quickly turn to the person we need, ask our question, get an answer, and get back to work. Someone downvoted me in another thread about open-offices because I do this. A coworker who sits three feet away often pings me multiple times a day with questions that are much easier answered by turning around, wheeling over pointing to a few things on their screen, explaining how they related and wheeling back over. They said "I was part of the problem". Because it's quicker to turn around and have a human conversation with someone sitting a yard away than type, take screenshots, and beam them over the network?

watwut 8y ago
Cause slack does not interrupt while I am focused while your question does interrupt while I am focused. It takes effort and time to get back to focused state. Frequent random interrupts kill productivity. So, while it is making you faster, it is killing focus and productivity of the person you are asking to. Which is fine as long as the other person does not have deadline or other need to produce more.
- fossuser 8y ago
  They’re answering questions, not asking them.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  it is killing focus and productivity of the person you are asking to. At the expense of mine by asking me a question, and asking me for help. Seems rather one-sided, no? A colleague has asked for my help. Their concentration is already broken because there is a problem they need help solving, and probably their work progress is halted because they're unsure what to do about a given problem, and think I am someone who can help them. I genuinely do not understand the objection to whipping around and offering to help that person solve a problem that prevents them from accomplishing a task, project, assignment or obligation. I ask for help understanding the conceit here, that the person who turns around and helps their colleague is at fault of 'breaking someone's concentration' when they were asked to provide help to a coworker.

kevinSuttle 8y ago

> We find that it REALLY helps us minimize meetings and email/Slack since we can quickly turn to the person we need So, it's an all-day, unpredictable meeting?

oblio 8y ago

Sort of related to your username, those are unicorns. Most companies are dysfunctional or barely functional. Why those same companies have 99% of the time open spaces is not a mystery. It's cheap. It's not because XP, pair programming, quick feedback or any other ponies/unicorns, it's because you can cram more people in a smaller place. Oh, and also control. Managers at least have the illusion of direct control or even better, they have a Stasi-like informant network in case someone "misbehaves".

sidlls 8y ago

I'm not big on pretending there aren't real differences with respect to the kinds of work done in this industry. Some engineering is harder than others and open offices simply don't fit all cases. Or even most, per the article.

PurpleRamen 8y ago

The only way for open offices to work is when nobody is doing open work. The major fail of open offices are the constant distractions existing around you. If they don't exist, then of course can it work. Anyway, what you discribe still has a price for your team. You not only break the persons concentration who is asked, instead of giving them the choice to answer when they have free time to concentrate on something new, you also break rise the chance of breaking the concentration of everyone else who is not involved.