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> It’s astonishing to me that new staff as well as new managers became such eager consumers and proponents of open offices just because a few big-IPO companies

> It’s astonishing to me that new staff as well as new managers became such eager consumers and proponents of open offices just because a few big-IPO companies made it _seem_ avant-garde. That's how the tech community operates. You get a few early, loud supporters to shut down any conversation that may draw attention to the negatives. Eventually, years later those people grow hoarse from yelling and sensible people return to the conversation.

C1sc0cat 8y ago
No it was corporate building services deciding they know best.
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  I think it was a mixture of column A and column B. Open offices became a trend in cheap office buildings, sure, but there was also the fad among early "Agile" proponents/consultants that were very vocal that open office "communication" was some secret sauce to "Agile" that produced better or faster code somehow. (The Agile consultant fad seems an interesting telephone game from the ideal of "pair programming". Devolving from "pair programming in offices setup up for two and only two developers to closely share code without other distractions" to "pair programming is easier in open offices than cubicles" to "open offices enable ad hoc pair programming without dedicating people to actually learning/using pair programming, right?" bokum.)
  - C1sc0cat 8y ago
    Mmm Having been on a high profile (presented at the IEEE) early RDA/DSDM/Agile project at British Telecom in the mid 90's. 1 You produce code faster - not necessarily better 1 month vs 2 years :-) 2 We had a dedicated section of the office just for the team - not the classic open plan office.
specialist 8y ago
"Eventually, years later those people grow hoarse from yelling and sensible people return to the conversation." I've never seen that. Rather, the "innovators" fail upwards, never sticking around long enough to get pinned with the damage and chaos they caused.

C1sc0cat 8y ago

No it was corporate building services deciding they know best.

WorldMaker 8y ago
I think it was a mixture of column A and column B. Open offices became a trend in cheap office buildings, sure, but there was also the fad among early "Agile" proponents/consultants that were very vocal that open office "communication" was some secret sauce to "Agile" that produced better or faster code somehow. (The Agile consultant fad seems an interesting telephone game from the ideal of "pair programming". Devolving from "pair programming in offices setup up for two and only two developers to closely share code without other distractions" to "pair programming is easier in open offices than cubicles" to "open offices enable ad hoc pair programming without dedicating people to actually learning/using pair programming, right?" bokum.)
- C1sc0cat 8y ago
  Mmm Having been on a high profile (presented at the IEEE) early RDA/DSDM/Agile project at British Telecom in the mid 90's. 1 You produce code faster - not necessarily better 1 month vs 2 years :-) 2 We had a dedicated section of the office just for the team - not the classic open plan office.

specialist 8y ago

"Eventually, years later those people grow hoarse from yelling and sensible people return to the conversation." I've never seen that. Rather, the "innovators" fail upwards, never sticking around long enough to get pinned with the damage and chaos they caused.