IMO the optimal arrangement for technical teams is small groups of people in shared offices, say ~4 per office. What I've noticed is that a handful of people t

IMO the optimal arrangement for technical teams is small groups of people in shared offices, say ~4 per office. What I've noticed is that a handful of people together in a space will typically work out issues like music vs. no music, lights on vs. off, blinds open vs. closed, etc. without a lot of trouble. But there's a tipping point where it gets much harder. Put 20 people in an open office and suddenly everyone is wearing headphones and nobody is talking (except the people who are ALWAYS talking/yelling to each other) and it sucks. I think as far back as the late 70s, "Peopleware" cited a bunch of studies that found that small shared offices with flexible policies on letting people move around (so people can self-organize either around their teams or with people they share space well with) was optimal. Sadly few offices seem to have adopted this.