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Does that not just create silos though. So many things require cross-team working. If each team has its own private space then information bottlenecks will occu

Does that not just create silos though. So many things require cross-team working. If each team has its own private space then information bottlenecks will occur

TeMPOraL 6y ago
You have to compare the cost of potential information bottlenecks with the cost of no deeper work being done at all. To combat the bottlenecks, just include shared spaces - a kitchen with a water cooler, a foosball table, a customary time where people go to lunch as a group. Serendipity will happen there, and workstations can be reclaimed as places for concentration.
- gmtx725 6y ago
  Maybe, i'm not convinced. In my experience social interactions in shared spaces like kitchens etc tend to be dominated by general niceties and non-work chat. Which is fine, obviously, but I don't think you get the benefits as when people working on similar stuff are physically proximate to one another in their workspace, and can get feedback on an idea they are working on now instantly from knowledgeable coworkers
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    > people working on similar stuff are physically proximate to one another in their workspace, and can get feedback on an idea they are working on now instantly from knowledgeable coworkers Yeah, but the issue people arguing against open-space have, myself included, is that we explicitly don't want to have these interactions, at least not in unstructured form - because your request for feedback from me "now instantly" is actively preventing me from getting my work done.
    - gmtx725 6y ago
      It's just that, a request. You are not obliged to help people straight away if you are deeply engaged in something. In fact most people are polite enough to not ask if it's clear you are busy. But if you're not, having access to that immediacy is a real boon IMO.
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        It's a request, but just issuing a request to a developer in a state of deep focus stands a good chance of kicking them out of that focused state, ruining anywhere between half an hour and the rest of the day for them. So you need to be really mindful of the cost of just asking someone if they have time. The usual solutions I've employed or been subjected to in the past are: 1) headphones on == no interruptions of any kind, 2) direct questions and requests to IM (with notifications off), and 3) if you need someone's repeated help during the day, then note your questions on a list, and agree on a period (e.g. every hour on the clock) when you and that someone will go over the list together. In my experience, 3) is magical, because once you start noting questions down instead of asking for help immediately, you'll discover that before the hour is up, you'll have answered most of your questions yourself.
        gmtx725 6y ago
        I feel like you're being a bit precious. If someone asks you 'hey, can you help out with this', and you respond 'no not right now i'm busy', that knocks you out for half an hour to the rest of the day??? FWIW I'm a pretty independent worker and I agree people should try and work things out on their own before asking for help
        thomaslord 6y ago
        It's not necessarily about having that happen once though. That can happen the many times throughout the day, and 2-3 interruptions in one day can be a lot. I think a lot of the point of not doing open-plan is to engineer an environment where it happens less often. That being said, it's entirely possible that some tasks will require absolute focus and having a 2 minute conversation will legitimately lose you a large amount of productive time. There may also be a subset of people who are more likely to get these particular tasks, and those people will feel the negative effects of an open plan office much more than others working on more easily interruptible tasks.
        rglullis 6y ago
        Yes, it is that bad for some people. But most importantly, even if it meant "just" 5 minutes to get back into flow, you still have an organization that doesn't know how to share information and you have a manager that is crippling team productivity without even knowing. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/02/12/human-task-switches-considered-harmful https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/02/12/human-task-switche... > I agree people should try and work things out on their own before asking for help That is far from ideal in two ways: - knowledge sharing suffers. You do your research and solve your problem or you don't and you have to ask to someone else more experienced. Knowledge sharing is kept to an oral tradition. Teams quickly start depending on one or two key members and juniors are often with a feeling with being left alone. - you still have this anxiety of "when is it okay to interrupt?" On both ends. Everyone's threshold is different, so there is always someone who will be annoyed by the interruption and suffer. The way to fix this is by promoting collaboration (pair-programming sessions are great and both partners already expect the communication, so "flow" is easier to maintain, also it is terrible to do on open-floor plans) and having a clear written practice to share knowledge and documentation. There is no single situation where an open plan office leads to more team and individual productivity.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- opo 6y ago
  The best approach I have seen is individual offices with shared collaboration areas nearby. People can do deep work by closing their office door. People can pair-program, have someone look over their code, have a private conversation etc by going to another's office without disturbing everyone else. The shared collaboration area allows for quick easy group discussion when helpful. In terms of preventing information bottlenecks, it is easy for someone in another team to walk by and ask a question of someone or run an idea by them without it being a big deal.
twic 6y ago
This is what everyone assumes, but when you actually test that idea, it turns out not to be true: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2017.0239 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...
- tanseydavid 6y ago
  Thank you for the academic link providing a solid contradiction to the idea that open-plan facilitates or improves 'collaboration'.

Does that not just create silos though. So many things require cross-team working. If each team has its own private space then information bottlenecks will occur

TeMPOraL 6y ago

You have to compare the cost of potential information bottlenecks with the cost of no deeper work being done at all. To combat the bottlenecks, just include shared spaces - a kitchen with a water cooler, a foosball table, a customary time where people go to lunch as a group. Serendipity will happen there, and workstations can be reclaimed as places for concentration.

gmtx725 6y ago
Maybe, i'm not convinced. In my experience social interactions in shared spaces like kitchens etc tend to be dominated by general niceties and non-work chat. Which is fine, obviously, but I don't think you get the benefits as when people working on similar stuff are physically proximate to one another in their workspace, and can get feedback on an idea they are working on now instantly from knowledgeable coworkers
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > people working on similar stuff are physically proximate to one another in their workspace, and can get feedback on an idea they are working on now instantly from knowledgeable coworkers Yeah, but the issue people arguing against open-space have, myself included, is that we explicitly don't want to have these interactions, at least not in unstructured form - because your request for feedback from me "now instantly" is actively preventing me from getting my work done.
  - gmtx725 6y ago
    It's just that, a request. You are not obliged to help people straight away if you are deeply engaged in something. In fact most people are polite enough to not ask if it's clear you are busy. But if you're not, having access to that immediacy is a real boon IMO.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      It's a request, but just issuing a request to a developer in a state of deep focus stands a good chance of kicking them out of that focused state, ruining anywhere between half an hour and the rest of the day for them. So you need to be really mindful of the cost of just asking someone if they have time. The usual solutions I've employed or been subjected to in the past are: 1) headphones on == no interruptions of any kind, 2) direct questions and requests to IM (with notifications off), and 3) if you need someone's repeated help during the day, then note your questions on a list, and agree on a period (e.g. every hour on the clock) when you and that someone will go over the list together. In my experience, 3) is magical, because once you start noting questions down instead of asking for help immediately, you'll discover that before the hour is up, you'll have answered most of your questions yourself.
      - gmtx725 6y ago
        I feel like you're being a bit precious. If someone asks you 'hey, can you help out with this', and you respond 'no not right now i'm busy', that knocks you out for half an hour to the rest of the day??? FWIW I'm a pretty independent worker and I agree people should try and work things out on their own before asking for help
        thomaslord 6y ago
        It's not necessarily about having that happen once though. That can happen the many times throughout the day, and 2-3 interruptions in one day can be a lot. I think a lot of the point of not doing open-plan is to engineer an environment where it happens less often. That being said, it's entirely possible that some tasks will require absolute focus and having a 2 minute conversation will legitimately lose you a large amount of productive time. There may also be a subset of people who are more likely to get these particular tasks, and those people will feel the negative effects of an open plan office much more than others working on more easily interruptible tasks.
        rglullis 6y ago
        Yes, it is that bad for some people. But most importantly, even if it meant "just" 5 minutes to get back into flow, you still have an organization that doesn't know how to share information and you have a manager that is crippling team productivity without even knowing. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/02/12/human-task-switches-considered-harmful https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/02/12/human-task-switche... > I agree people should try and work things out on their own before asking for help That is far from ideal in two ways: - knowledge sharing suffers. You do your research and solve your problem or you don't and you have to ask to someone else more experienced. Knowledge sharing is kept to an oral tradition. Teams quickly start depending on one or two key members and juniors are often with a feeling with being left alone. - you still have this anxiety of "when is it okay to interrupt?" On both ends. Everyone's threshold is different, so there is always someone who will be annoyed by the interruption and suffer. The way to fix this is by promoting collaboration (pair-programming sessions are great and both partners already expect the communication, so "flow" is easier to maintain, also it is terrible to do on open-floor plans) and having a clear written practice to share knowledge and documentation. There is no single situation where an open plan office leads to more team and individual productivity.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
opo 6y ago
The best approach I have seen is individual offices with shared collaboration areas nearby. People can do deep work by closing their office door. People can pair-program, have someone look over their code, have a private conversation etc by going to another's office without disturbing everyone else. The shared collaboration area allows for quick easy group discussion when helpful. In terms of preventing information bottlenecks, it is easy for someone in another team to walk by and ask a question of someone or run an idea by them without it being a big deal.

twic 6y ago

This is what everyone assumes, but when you actually test that idea, it turns out not to be true: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2017.0239 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...

tanseydavid 6y ago
Thank you for the academic link providing a solid contradiction to the idea that open-plan facilitates or improves 'collaboration'.