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I feel like we're only having this discussion at this point because: - Agile brought interruptions to a new level of pain - We have too many instant interrupt

I feel like we're only having this discussion at this point because: - Agile brought interruptions to a new level of pain - We have too many instant interruption communication points (slack) - Open Offices have made interrution far worse There were books about this concept 30 years ago. It was totally recognized that you shouldn't break up an engineer's time into tiny chunks with 1000 cuts worth of meetings. But we threw it all out the window in the last 10-15 years with the rise of Agile + Open Office + Instant Message/Always-On communication programs.

bonestamp2 7y ago
Out of all of these things, open offices have been the worst in my opinion. At least with slack (or whatever other messenger you use) you can ignore that until your thought is complete or you want to make a quick note of your thoughts before allowing the distraction. When someone taps your shoulder it's much harder to ask them to wait, so it happens much less than it should... not to mention the constant passive distraction of people moving around and having other conversations. We used to be in small offices of 2-4 people. That was perfect and I miss those days. The office looks a lot nicer now that it's open, but it's a disaster from a concentration standpoint. But, I think a lot of managers like the open concept because it's easier to see people and because it does often look nicer and often has more natural light.
- mc3 7y ago
  I have never worked in a 2-4 office and certainly not a 1-office, but I find about 10 in an office is manageable if they are all quiet non-phone-calling people. I worked a place with 400 people in open plan close proximity, where your workspace doubles up as a corridor, and no meeting spaces, so it also doubles up as a meeting room for any teams meetings. It was impossible to concentrate. That drove me to some Howard Leight earplugs, beefy headphones with "the ocean machine set to 9". The impomptu meetings now sounded like a squeek, but it was still distracting. I had to leave that job because of this and other negative effects of a cattle-like approach to handling software talent.
eikenberry 7y ago
I completely agree that open offices designs are completely terrible and make work very stressful. I don't see agile and slack as equivalents though as how they get implemented completely dictates how this plays out. My current work is agile and we use slack and I have 0 problems with being interrupted. We also don't have the issue with open offices as well, given that we are 100% remote. Personally I think the fully remote fixes half the problems in this area as it makes meetings harder and emphasizes communications like slack as being real channels (with processes and conventions), vs. a side channel that people feel easier to bug you personally on.
munchbunny 7y ago
> We have too many instant interruption communication points (slack) Depending on the company culture, you can choose to just not respond for a couple hours. "Sorry, I was working through a complicated chunk of code and I needed uninterrupted focus." "Yeah I saw your message, but I was in the middle of something, and I needed to focus." I do that on purpose. If it's not urgent, even if they say it is, it can wait. Eventually people start to get it and stop expecting real-time responses.
jariel 7y ago
I often wonder if Eng's should even be on slack, have email or even a phone number. Basically - some kind of 'light online chat' with their immediate peers if they need it: everything else in person from management. Kaban on the physical wall. That's it.
ben7799 7y ago
Just as a follow on... At one point I had to read a management book about this problem, it was probably published in the 1990s, it was Pre-Agile Manifesto for sure. It had recommendations like: - Meetings should be first thing in the morning or right before lunch, or at the end of the day - Engineers should only log into email once or twice a day - Stuff like close doors when intensely concentrating to indicate your busy/concentrating Email, Slack, etc.. we can exit out of. But there is an expectation IME these days that we respond to things quicker than in the past. With respect to Agile.. if you're in a small enough org where there's only one standup you can have it in the morning and stick to these guidelines. But in a bigger org there are a bunch of different standups. The Managers want to go to a bunch of them, so the standups end up moved all over the day to meet the managers schedule, causing all the maker schedules to get messed up with meetings at all times of the day. Stuff like close the door to your office sounds like another universe. I started working in 1996 (internship) and I have only held 1 position where we all had offices. That was in a facility/group that was originally a research division. That office did get razed at some point after I left in the early 2000s to get turned into cubes/open office.

bonestamp2 7y ago

Out of all of these things, open offices have been the worst in my opinion. At least with slack (or whatever other messenger you use) you can ignore that until your thought is complete or you want to make a quick note of your thoughts before allowing the distraction. When someone taps your shoulder it's much harder to ask them to wait, so it happens much less than it should... not to mention the constant passive distraction of people moving around and having other conversations. We used to be in small offices of 2-4 people. That was perfect and I miss those days. The office looks a lot nicer now that it's open, but it's a disaster from a concentration standpoint. But, I think a lot of managers like the open concept because it's easier to see people and because it does often look nicer and often has more natural light.

mc3 7y ago
I have never worked in a 2-4 office and certainly not a 1-office, but I find about 10 in an office is manageable if they are all quiet non-phone-calling people. I worked a place with 400 people in open plan close proximity, where your workspace doubles up as a corridor, and no meeting spaces, so it also doubles up as a meeting room for any teams meetings. It was impossible to concentrate. That drove me to some Howard Leight earplugs, beefy headphones with "the ocean machine set to 9". The impomptu meetings now sounded like a squeek, but it was still distracting. I had to leave that job because of this and other negative effects of a cattle-like approach to handling software talent.

eikenberry 7y ago

I completely agree that open offices designs are completely terrible and make work very stressful. I don't see agile and slack as equivalents though as how they get implemented completely dictates how this plays out. My current work is agile and we use slack and I have 0 problems with being interrupted. We also don't have the issue with open offices as well, given that we are 100% remote. Personally I think the fully remote fixes half the problems in this area as it makes meetings harder and emphasizes communications like slack as being real channels (with processes and conventions), vs. a side channel that people feel easier to bug you personally on.

munchbunny 7y ago

> We have too many instant interruption communication points (slack) Depending on the company culture, you can choose to just not respond for a couple hours. "Sorry, I was working through a complicated chunk of code and I needed uninterrupted focus." "Yeah I saw your message, but I was in the middle of something, and I needed to focus." I do that on purpose. If it's not urgent, even if they say it is, it can wait. Eventually people start to get it and stop expecting real-time responses.

jariel 7y ago

I often wonder if Eng's should even be on slack, have email or even a phone number. Basically - some kind of 'light online chat' with their immediate peers if they need it: everything else in person from management. Kaban on the physical wall. That's it.

ben7799 7y ago

Just as a follow on... At one point I had to read a management book about this problem, it was probably published in the 1990s, it was Pre-Agile Manifesto for sure. It had recommendations like: - Meetings should be first thing in the morning or right before lunch, or at the end of the day - Engineers should only log into email once or twice a day - Stuff like close doors when intensely concentrating to indicate your busy/concentrating Email, Slack, etc.. we can exit out of. But there is an expectation IME these days that we respond to things quicker than in the past. With respect to Agile.. if you're in a small enough org where there's only one standup you can have it in the morning and stick to these guidelines. But in a bigger org there are a bunch of different standups. The Managers want to go to a bunch of them, so the standups end up moved all over the day to meet the managers schedule, causing all the maker schedules to get messed up with meetings at all times of the day. Stuff like close the door to your office sounds like another universe. I started working in 1996 (internship) and I have only held 1 position where we all had offices. That was in a facility/group that was originally a research division. That office did get razed at some point after I left in the early 2000s to get turned into cubes/open office.