4 ms·

If you google around, you will find lots of studies on that subject have already been done, and most of them find, that open offices are for the most part are l

If you google around, you will find lots of studies on that subject have already been done, and most of them find, that open offices are for the most part are less productive. The only way to find out if you are right is to test it. Until that is done, it makes most sense to go with, majority of studies. That said, you suggestion (about having both types) might work in ideal world. In real world you wouldn't really have a choice most of the time, because if your team mostly works in open office, you will miss* out on a lot if working in closed office. And if majority of people work in closed offices, then you loose all the benefits that open offices bring anyway. So you would end up in whatever team lead decided that its best. * And likely be considered antisocial.

kerkeslager 7y ago
> If you google around, you will find lots of studies on that subject have already been done, and most of them find, that open offices are for the most part are less productive. If you Google around, you will find lots of studies that tested which office style you should force everyone into, without considering the possibility that forcing everyone into the same office style might be a bad idea. That doesn't address my point at all. > The only way to find out if you are right is to test it. My entire career has been a test showing that I can't get much done in isolation. Open offices work great for me, and at this point, I will not take a job that requires me to work in isolation. Again I'm going to ask: why are we forcing everyone into one style of office?
- unionpivo 7y ago
  > Again I'm going to ask: why are we forcing everyone into one style of office? I addressed that in my reply: "That said, you suggestion (about having both types) might work in ideal world. In real world you wouldn't really have a choice most of the time, because if your team mostly works in open office, you will miss* out on a lot if working in closed office. And if majority of people work in closed offices, then you loose all the benefits that open offices bring anyway. So you would end up in whatever team lead decided that its best. * And likely be considered antisocial. " > My entire career has been a test showing that I can't get much done in isolation. Open offices work great for me, and at this point, I will not take a job that requires me to work in isolation. Well if the rest of the team, is in their own offices and you are alone or with people from other groups/teams how exactly will that work for you, you might as well be in coffee shop across the street. I am not trying to say that you should like individual offices, but you can't really mix both of them together, unless your teams are huge (which I personally dislike). Edit: Not sure if I explained myself correctly (I am not trying to say that some people don't work better in open offices), and I come of across as a bit of a jerk, which was unintentional. Edit2: and its a moot point mostly anyway, because open offices are cheaper, so there will always be plenty of companies with open offices, whatever studies show.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > So you would end up in whatever team lead decided that its best. That's poor leadership on their part. > Well if the rest of the team, is in their own offices and you are alone or with people from other groups/teams how exactly will that work for you, you might as well be in coffee shop across the street. If the rest of the team is in their own offices, sure. That hasn't been the case for most teams I've worked on, however (which may be self-selection on my part--but it's never been hard for me to find a team I work well with). > I am not trying to say that you should like individual offices, but you can't really mix both of them together, unless your teams are huge (which I personally dislike). 1. What's huge to you? The only team I've worked with which had a really mixed open/private space ranged from 6-10 people while I was there. There were 2-3 people who worked consistently together (let's call these extroverts, which includes me), 3-5 who worked consistently on their own (let's call these introverts) and 1-2 who floated back and forth (let's call these ambiverts). The shared space was mixed with other teams--it's also worth noting that even if the people around you aren't on your team, there still needs to be some collaboration between teams, so even if you're the only extrovert on your team, working in a shared space that still isn't the same as working in a coffee shop across the street. A team of 10 is starting to get a bit bigger than I like personally, but 6-8 feels pretty ideal to me. Now I work for myself and I'm not seated with my client's team at all. But I tend to work in coworking spaces[1] frequented by other people working in my field, with people who frequently bounce designs and coding questions off of each other. This is a lot like your coffee shop idea, so that has some validity. But it isn't super ideal for me--if I continue getting consistent business, I may hire some people just to have some more direct collaboration in my life. 2. There also doesn't need to be this kind of diversity in the same team. You can have a team that's all introverts, or a team that's all extroverts, and in those cases, picking a completely private layout or a completely open layout, respectively, is fine. The point is to assess the needs of your team and build your workspace around their needs instead of looking for a one-size-fits all solution for some "normal" team that doesn't exist. I'll note that it's harder to integrate one extrovert into a team with a lot of introverts than the opposite. I don't really have a good solution for that problem. [1] Not WeWork. They're so expensive and overcrowded! Just because I am an extrovert doesn't mean I want to be sitting on top of my neighbor.

kerkeslager 7y ago

> If you google around, you will find lots of studies on that subject have already been done, and most of them find, that open offices are for the most part are less productive. If you Google around, you will find lots of studies that tested which office style you should force everyone into, without considering the possibility that forcing everyone into the same office style might be a bad idea. That doesn't address my point at all. > The only way to find out if you are right is to test it. My entire career has been a test showing that I can't get much done in isolation. Open offices work great for me, and at this point, I will not take a job that requires me to work in isolation. Again I'm going to ask: why are we forcing everyone into one style of office?

unionpivo 7y ago
> Again I'm going to ask: why are we forcing everyone into one style of office? I addressed that in my reply: "That said, you suggestion (about having both types) might work in ideal world. In real world you wouldn't really have a choice most of the time, because if your team mostly works in open office, you will miss* out on a lot if working in closed office. And if majority of people work in closed offices, then you loose all the benefits that open offices bring anyway. So you would end up in whatever team lead decided that its best. * And likely be considered antisocial. " > My entire career has been a test showing that I can't get much done in isolation. Open offices work great for me, and at this point, I will not take a job that requires me to work in isolation. Well if the rest of the team, is in their own offices and you are alone or with people from other groups/teams how exactly will that work for you, you might as well be in coffee shop across the street. I am not trying to say that you should like individual offices, but you can't really mix both of them together, unless your teams are huge (which I personally dislike). Edit: Not sure if I explained myself correctly (I am not trying to say that some people don't work better in open offices), and I come of across as a bit of a jerk, which was unintentional. Edit2: and its a moot point mostly anyway, because open offices are cheaper, so there will always be plenty of companies with open offices, whatever studies show.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > So you would end up in whatever team lead decided that its best. That's poor leadership on their part. > Well if the rest of the team, is in their own offices and you are alone or with people from other groups/teams how exactly will that work for you, you might as well be in coffee shop across the street. If the rest of the team is in their own offices, sure. That hasn't been the case for most teams I've worked on, however (which may be self-selection on my part--but it's never been hard for me to find a team I work well with). > I am not trying to say that you should like individual offices, but you can't really mix both of them together, unless your teams are huge (which I personally dislike). 1. What's huge to you? The only team I've worked with which had a really mixed open/private space ranged from 6-10 people while I was there. There were 2-3 people who worked consistently together (let's call these extroverts, which includes me), 3-5 who worked consistently on their own (let's call these introverts) and 1-2 who floated back and forth (let's call these ambiverts). The shared space was mixed with other teams--it's also worth noting that even if the people around you aren't on your team, there still needs to be some collaboration between teams, so even if you're the only extrovert on your team, working in a shared space that still isn't the same as working in a coffee shop across the street. A team of 10 is starting to get a bit bigger than I like personally, but 6-8 feels pretty ideal to me. Now I work for myself and I'm not seated with my client's team at all. But I tend to work in coworking spaces[1] frequented by other people working in my field, with people who frequently bounce designs and coding questions off of each other. This is a lot like your coffee shop idea, so that has some validity. But it isn't super ideal for me--if I continue getting consistent business, I may hire some people just to have some more direct collaboration in my life. 2. There also doesn't need to be this kind of diversity in the same team. You can have a team that's all introverts, or a team that's all extroverts, and in those cases, picking a completely private layout or a completely open layout, respectively, is fine. The point is to assess the needs of your team and build your workspace around their needs instead of looking for a one-size-fits all solution for some "normal" team that doesn't exist. I'll note that it's harder to integrate one extrovert into a team with a lot of introverts than the opposite. I don't really have a good solution for that problem. [1] Not WeWork. They're so expensive and overcrowded! Just because I am an extrovert doesn't mean I want to be sitting on top of my neighbor.