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Next paper from these guys will say: "the shift from an open office plan to private offices caused work to become more siloed. Previous research shows this may

Next paper from these guys will say: "the shift from an open office plan to private offices caused work to become more siloed. Previous research shows this may impede the flow of information through the network" People need to stop fetishizing "breaking down silos" and "serendipitous hallway encounters" and all that nonsense and think about the big picture. You're more likely to have something worth saying, and a work product worth talking about, if you aren't wasting time on your commute and shooting the shit in the office.

hogFeast 5y ago
If your business model includes: "we put people in an office in the hopes that their random interactions will create value"...then that sounds like the problem is something else. Random encounters that create value sound good. It sounds less good when you flip this logic, and ask whether the reliance on randomness is a function of weak information-sharing within formal structures. It is easier to break down silos if you put this online, then there is genuine sharing. That is what the internet is for.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- imbnwa 5y ago
  > Random encounters that create value sound good. It sounds less good when you flip this logic, and ask whether the reliance on randomness is a function of weak information-sharing within formal structures. It is easier to break down silos if you put this online, then there is genuine sharing. That is what the internet is for. Probably why I've never seen a Confluence that wasn't a disaster, magnified by turnover. This kind of stuff isn't interesting to business because it forces them to be accountable rather than deflecting accountability on the people in the trenches. Those people are expected to do all the heavy lifting for the org while business focuses on 'the bigger picture'
  - rybosworld 5y ago
    Confluence does the bare minimum to support organization, imo. It is too easy for documents to become orphaned.
  - civilized 5y ago
    Confluence is the dictionary definition of "tragedy of the commons"
huetius 5y ago
I can sympathize with this, given that truly high-functioning, collaborative work environments are anything but ubiquitous, but I think that these kinds of environments are still the ideal, however rare and difficult to achieve they are. I’ve only worked for two orgs that really got it right, and they were far and away the best work experiences I’ve had. I can’t imagine those orgs being able to thrive in a completely remote environment (I know factually that one has big attrition problems since COVID hit). The problem is that it takes a lot of effort and attention from all levels of the company to really get it right. You also need a commitment to subsidiarity and shared vision, which most companies actively disincentivize, despite rhetoric to the contrary. EDIT: wording, typos, formatting.
- civilized 5y ago
  I get that some people love their offices and think they are amazing work environments, but when I probe, it always seems to boil down to emotional attachment. A lifestyle choice. Offices usually don't actually improve productivity, IMO.
  - huetius 5y ago
    That’s probably true in many, or even most cases. Even so, what do you think about the example of the formerly successful company that now can’t retain engineers? Even if the benefits were entirely intangible, this still ultimately has had an effect on productivity, right? Intangible benefits are… benefits! I think the benefits were quite tangible in this case; I can elaborate as much as I can while maintaining my anonymity if you think it’s relevant. EDIT: more formatting. Can’t type today.
    - civilized 5y ago
      Some people need the office. Some companies run on it. I don't care for it. Maybe we could all just leave each other alone.
sixdimensional 5y ago
I'd go one step further. I have done research on "silos" and actually believe they form naturally, even virtually, and we should be looking how to take advantage of the natural tendencies and make them more effective rather than eradicate them because it sounds like a good thing to do. I'm not saying a return to pure tribalism here, but I am saying maybe realistic acknowledgement of tendencies and how to make those more effective/efficient and less problematic might be a good idea. In other words, turn a negative into a positive. Work with the tendencies with incremental improvement. There's another way of thinking about silos - call them organizational boundaries - and observe a complete shift in thought on the topic. Some might call this heretical thinking.
- clcaev 5y ago
  Boundaries, especially explicit ones with clear contracts, are healthy and enable innovation (via refactoring, automation, efficient onboarding, quality control). In the organizational recesses, hiding within unaccountable reporting, away from healthy boundaries, is where sociopaths grow most influential.
  - sixdimensional 5y ago
    I think you bring up a good point. I do believe that, especially at large scale organizations with many suborganizations, the situation you describe can occur even more frequently. At the end of the day, we are all surrounded by different scales of organization, whether it be a small family unit, formal and informal networks, societal organizations and institutions, businesses, etc. There has to be a balance, because many organizations want flexibility, "democracy", the ability to change direction quickly, autonomy in suborganizations, etc. Yet, this must be balanced with the need for some kind of order against pure chaos or harmful organization actors (for instance). This implies some kind of governance, some kind of "ground rules" if you were, for things to function and be reasonably effective/efficient. I think this is where organizational culture truly matters. I do think culture can be encouraged, and norms and behaviors modeled, and sometimes even formally enforced, but ultimately the net governance that emerges at scale is a sum of the parts (i.e. the whole is greater). I do not know if, at the kind of organizational scale I'm talking about (many thousands of people or more), it is possible to govern everything with absolute precision and control. Rather, at scale, one can only model the desired outcomes, norms and behaviors, and/or set policy. Utimately what the organization is - all its boundaries and suborganizations and networks all the way up and down the scale of an organization - is determined by the sum of those who participate and represent the organization. It does leave holes where those with personal agendas or sociopathic tendencies (for example) may take hold. By all this, I mean to say that, I do not believe it is just in recesses where sociopaths grow most influential. I believe they grow wherever their influence has meaning and they have power/control. The only thing that can protect organizations against such behavior ultimately is the collective will of the members of the organization, at all levels of scale. The culture, and members of the organization are the ultimate tool for protecting the organization against such threats. Even with laws or policies, everything depends on enforcement. Enforcement also depends on culture, in addition to power and control. I believe though, that in the long run, everything depends on what culture allows, and only culture can stop sociopaths from being ultimately successful and protect organizations from such threats.
onion2k 5y ago
You're more likely to have something worth saying, and a work product worth talking about, if you aren't wasting time on your commute and shooting the shit in the office. The problem is that no one actually knows if that's true, or whether it's universal or individual. I used to commute by train, and I got a good hour of time to myself to think. I did great work thinking through problems in that time. Now I work remotely I try to carve out an hour to just think about stuff, but it's less effective because I'm easily distracted by house things like washing up or playng with a cat. Similarly, I got value from hearing conversations around the office, and now I don't have that. Slack can be the same thing if people join in, but so far it's rarely as effective. All of that is tempered by the fact that I do much better work at home. Fewer distractions, more time, and longer quiet periods, all sum up very productive times. Ideally we need some from column A and some from column B. I absolutely don't think remote is perfect, but it's certainly better. With work on how to collaborate in remote environments I can see it being even better still.
hinkley 5y ago
I had a lot more candid conversations with people back when at least one of us had an office door to close. We have only begun to absorb the importance of psychological safety in software development. We rarely chase it directly, instead championing analogs that can be twisted out of shape and work at cross purposes. I can't tell you the number of times I've had arguments about what the point of unit test coverage is. The goal is not 100% coverage. The goal is to look at a green report and say, "I'm pretty sure this will work if you ship it." To trust the code. Yours, and everyone else's. To feel safe in making changes, or absorbing them. And for that to be useful, that report needs to arrive sooner and more reliably than another path I could use to arrive at the same conclusion. And that is why E2E tests are such a problem - they can take over 2 orders of magnitude as long to run as the unit tests, and still be wrong.

hogFeast 5y ago

If your business model includes: "we put people in an office in the hopes that their random interactions will create value"...then that sounds like the problem is something else. Random encounters that create value sound good. It sounds less good when you flip this logic, and ask whether the reliance on randomness is a function of weak information-sharing within formal structures. It is easier to break down silos if you put this online, then there is genuine sharing. That is what the internet is for.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
imbnwa 5y ago
> Random encounters that create value sound good. It sounds less good when you flip this logic, and ask whether the reliance on randomness is a function of weak information-sharing within formal structures. It is easier to break down silos if you put this online, then there is genuine sharing. That is what the internet is for. Probably why I've never seen a Confluence that wasn't a disaster, magnified by turnover. This kind of stuff isn't interesting to business because it forces them to be accountable rather than deflecting accountability on the people in the trenches. Those people are expected to do all the heavy lifting for the org while business focuses on 'the bigger picture'
- rybosworld 5y ago
  Confluence does the bare minimum to support organization, imo. It is too easy for documents to become orphaned.
- civilized 5y ago
  Confluence is the dictionary definition of "tragedy of the commons"

huetius 5y ago

I can sympathize with this, given that truly high-functioning, collaborative work environments are anything but ubiquitous, but I think that these kinds of environments are still the ideal, however rare and difficult to achieve they are. I’ve only worked for two orgs that really got it right, and they were far and away the best work experiences I’ve had. I can’t imagine those orgs being able to thrive in a completely remote environment (I know factually that one has big attrition problems since COVID hit). The problem is that it takes a lot of effort and attention from all levels of the company to really get it right. You also need a commitment to subsidiarity and shared vision, which most companies actively disincentivize, despite rhetoric to the contrary. EDIT: wording, typos, formatting.

civilized 5y ago
I get that some people love their offices and think they are amazing work environments, but when I probe, it always seems to boil down to emotional attachment. A lifestyle choice. Offices usually don't actually improve productivity, IMO.
- huetius 5y ago
  That’s probably true in many, or even most cases. Even so, what do you think about the example of the formerly successful company that now can’t retain engineers? Even if the benefits were entirely intangible, this still ultimately has had an effect on productivity, right? Intangible benefits are… benefits! I think the benefits were quite tangible in this case; I can elaborate as much as I can while maintaining my anonymity if you think it’s relevant. EDIT: more formatting. Can’t type today.
  - civilized 5y ago
    Some people need the office. Some companies run on it. I don't care for it. Maybe we could all just leave each other alone.

sixdimensional 5y ago

I'd go one step further. I have done research on "silos" and actually believe they form naturally, even virtually, and we should be looking how to take advantage of the natural tendencies and make them more effective rather than eradicate them because it sounds like a good thing to do. I'm not saying a return to pure tribalism here, but I am saying maybe realistic acknowledgement of tendencies and how to make those more effective/efficient and less problematic might be a good idea. In other words, turn a negative into a positive. Work with the tendencies with incremental improvement. There's another way of thinking about silos - call them organizational boundaries - and observe a complete shift in thought on the topic. Some might call this heretical thinking.

clcaev 5y ago
Boundaries, especially explicit ones with clear contracts, are healthy and enable innovation (via refactoring, automation, efficient onboarding, quality control). In the organizational recesses, hiding within unaccountable reporting, away from healthy boundaries, is where sociopaths grow most influential.
- sixdimensional 5y ago
  I think you bring up a good point. I do believe that, especially at large scale organizations with many suborganizations, the situation you describe can occur even more frequently. At the end of the day, we are all surrounded by different scales of organization, whether it be a small family unit, formal and informal networks, societal organizations and institutions, businesses, etc. There has to be a balance, because many organizations want flexibility, "democracy", the ability to change direction quickly, autonomy in suborganizations, etc. Yet, this must be balanced with the need for some kind of order against pure chaos or harmful organization actors (for instance). This implies some kind of governance, some kind of "ground rules" if you were, for things to function and be reasonably effective/efficient. I think this is where organizational culture truly matters. I do think culture can be encouraged, and norms and behaviors modeled, and sometimes even formally enforced, but ultimately the net governance that emerges at scale is a sum of the parts (i.e. the whole is greater). I do not know if, at the kind of organizational scale I'm talking about (many thousands of people or more), it is possible to govern everything with absolute precision and control. Rather, at scale, one can only model the desired outcomes, norms and behaviors, and/or set policy. Utimately what the organization is - all its boundaries and suborganizations and networks all the way up and down the scale of an organization - is determined by the sum of those who participate and represent the organization. It does leave holes where those with personal agendas or sociopathic tendencies (for example) may take hold. By all this, I mean to say that, I do not believe it is just in recesses where sociopaths grow most influential. I believe they grow wherever their influence has meaning and they have power/control. The only thing that can protect organizations against such behavior ultimately is the collective will of the members of the organization, at all levels of scale. The culture, and members of the organization are the ultimate tool for protecting the organization against such threats. Even with laws or policies, everything depends on enforcement. Enforcement also depends on culture, in addition to power and control. I believe though, that in the long run, everything depends on what culture allows, and only culture can stop sociopaths from being ultimately successful and protect organizations from such threats.

onion2k 5y ago

You're more likely to have something worth saying, and a work product worth talking about, if you aren't wasting time on your commute and shooting the shit in the office. The problem is that no one actually knows if that's true, or whether it's universal or individual. I used to commute by train, and I got a good hour of time to myself to think. I did great work thinking through problems in that time. Now I work remotely I try to carve out an hour to just think about stuff, but it's less effective because I'm easily distracted by house things like washing up or playng with a cat. Similarly, I got value from hearing conversations around the office, and now I don't have that. Slack can be the same thing if people join in, but so far it's rarely as effective. All of that is tempered by the fact that I do much better work at home. Fewer distractions, more time, and longer quiet periods, all sum up very productive times. Ideally we need some from column A and some from column B. I absolutely don't think remote is perfect, but it's certainly better. With work on how to collaborate in remote environments I can see it being even better still.

hinkley 5y ago

I had a lot more candid conversations with people back when at least one of us had an office door to close. We have only begun to absorb the importance of psychological safety in software development. We rarely chase it directly, instead championing analogs that can be twisted out of shape and work at cross purposes. I can't tell you the number of times I've had arguments about what the point of unit test coverage is. The goal is not 100% coverage. The goal is to look at a green report and say, "I'm pretty sure this will work if you ship it." To trust the code. Yours, and everyone else's. To feel safe in making changes, or absorbing them. And for that to be useful, that report needs to arrive sooner and more reliably than another path I could use to arrive at the same conclusion. And that is why E2E tests are such a problem - they can take over 2 orders of magnitude as long to run as the unit tests, and still be wrong.