4 ms·

I recall a Computer-Supported Cooperative Work paper (possibly this one? https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358916.359005 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358916.3590

I recall a Computer-Supported Cooperative Work paper (possibly this one? https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358916.359005 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358916.359005) that identified different levels of collaboration including working together in the same room ("radically colocated" in CSCW jargon), working near others on the same floor, working on different floors or parts of the building, and working remotely or from different offices. They claimed that radical colocation was significantly more productive compared to the others, and collaborating across different floors was no better than being in different parts of the world. Based on my experience since then I am less skeptical about those claims than when I first read the paper. I've been on skunkworks projects where a half-dozen people worked out of the same conference room for a couple months, offices where my teammates' desks were clustered together around a meeting space, open-plan offices with my team spread across the building, and working remote during Covid. For well-established projects any of them were fine. But for new projects I felt like we gained a tremendous advantage by being in the same room. Maybe that won't always be true, but I wouldn't be surprised if it still holds today.

gofreddygo 4y ago
Oh how different experiences are. I have been involved in projects small and large. Worked in co-located teams and distributed (locally and globally). Some products failed, others survived. The driving force in projects that survived was the team's sincerity, manager's determination and combined experience in the domain. Not timezones, not manager seniority and certainly not the mean square of shouting distance between all team members.
- asoneth 4y ago
  I agree that team cohesion, manager skill, and domain experience are significantly more important factors to the success of a project than physical proximity. A bunch of random people dumped into the same room will not outperform an experienced remote team. But that is not sufficient evidence that proximity is not a contributing factor. To be more explicit: all else being equal (i.e. similar cohesion, skill, experience), teams that work together in a dedicated room seem to outperform expectations compared to similar teams that are spread across an open office or working remotely. (Personally I did not notice anything close to the "doubling of productivity" claimed in the paper above, but it was sufficient to be noticeable even with a small sample size.)

gofreddygo 4y ago

Oh how different experiences are. I have been involved in projects small and large. Worked in co-located teams and distributed (locally and globally). Some products failed, others survived. The driving force in projects that survived was the team's sincerity, manager's determination and combined experience in the domain. Not timezones, not manager seniority and certainly not the mean square of shouting distance between all team members.

asoneth 4y ago
I agree that team cohesion, manager skill, and domain experience are significantly more important factors to the success of a project than physical proximity. A bunch of random people dumped into the same room will not outperform an experienced remote team. But that is not sufficient evidence that proximity is not a contributing factor. To be more explicit: all else being equal (i.e. similar cohesion, skill, experience), teams that work together in a dedicated room seem to outperform expectations compared to similar teams that are spread across an open office or working remotely. (Personally I did not notice anything close to the "doubling of productivity" claimed in the paper above, but it was sufficient to be noticeable even with a small sample size.)