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This is really about the productivity/availability tradeoff, which is not linear but binary. Open-plan offices are optimized for availability. Closed-door envi

This is really about the productivity/availability tradeoff, which is not linear but binary. Open-plan offices are optimized for availability. Closed-door environments aren't great either. They might be good for the individual, but not for the team. Also, in the long-term, people who close their doors not to perform as well: they're more productive on an hour-by-hour basis, but they miss out on a lot of important conversations. Since 95% of the information that's actually important is conveyed in informal conversations rather than meetings, that can become an issue. What I think would work best is something like a restaurant booth in shape, but with 12-hour chairs (you can't work for a full day in a restaurant booth). The table is a common space for the team, but everyone has a wall at their back. Open-back visibility (and worse yet, rear traffic) is often more of a productivity-killer and anxiety-producer than noise.

ljf 15y ago
I'm reading Lean Startup at he moment, and that was one of the bits that jumped out to me; people feel productive when they get 'hours done'. This might be a solid 8 hours of coding in a day, but if you are missing out on conversations what is to say those 8 hours aren't in the wrong direction, or replication of work. Sure good standups might catch this sort of mistake, but I've seen people 'hide' what they are doing from the team, as they feel productive solving the problem. I love the idea of the booth you describe, where people are still 'available' but also can feel private and others can ssee from your face when you are totally in the zone.
- mindcrime 15y ago
  This might be a solid 8 hours of coding in a day, but if you are missing out on conversations what is to say those 8 hours aren't in the wrong direction, or replication of work. Serendipitous, happenstance conversations are a Good Thing, but if you're relying on that to keep people from spending entire days doing the wrong thing, you're doing something wrong, IMO. What's wrong with a daily standup meeting, chat via IRC/XMPP/whatever, and/or "management by walking around" on the behalf of whoever is leading the team, as a mechanism to make sure people are focused on the right thing? Sure good standups might catch this sort of mistake, but I've seen people 'hide' what they are doing from the team, as they feel productive solving the problem. If somebody is actively hiding what they're doing, you have bigger problems than the lack of chance conversations, no?
  - michaelochurch 15y ago
    I've seen "management by walking around" go very badly. I worked in a company where status pings were a 2-4 times per day occurrence. It made it really hard to get anything done because these impromptu meetings wasted so much time and energy. I think the guy was just bored... And used to having 10-20 reports (instead of 3) which would make 2-4 status pings per day less intolerable. It's not quite enough to say I quit that job (after the manager failed to mend his ways and gave a ridiculous rant about the incompetence of the team as justification for the insanity). I fired that jerk. Standups may be annoying but at least they're scheduled. I still think daily team-wide (6+ people) standups are still a waste of time, but at least it's a documented waste of time.
impeachgod 15y ago
This reminds me of Richard Hamming's talk "You and Your Research": http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html "I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important."

ljf 15y ago

I'm reading Lean Startup at he moment, and that was one of the bits that jumped out to me; people feel productive when they get 'hours done'. This might be a solid 8 hours of coding in a day, but if you are missing out on conversations what is to say those 8 hours aren't in the wrong direction, or replication of work. Sure good standups might catch this sort of mistake, but I've seen people 'hide' what they are doing from the team, as they feel productive solving the problem. I love the idea of the booth you describe, where people are still 'available' but also can feel private and others can ssee from your face when you are totally in the zone.

mindcrime 15y ago
This might be a solid 8 hours of coding in a day, but if you are missing out on conversations what is to say those 8 hours aren't in the wrong direction, or replication of work. Serendipitous, happenstance conversations are a Good Thing, but if you're relying on that to keep people from spending entire days doing the wrong thing, you're doing something wrong, IMO. What's wrong with a daily standup meeting, chat via IRC/XMPP/whatever, and/or "management by walking around" on the behalf of whoever is leading the team, as a mechanism to make sure people are focused on the right thing? Sure good standups might catch this sort of mistake, but I've seen people 'hide' what they are doing from the team, as they feel productive solving the problem. If somebody is actively hiding what they're doing, you have bigger problems than the lack of chance conversations, no?
- michaelochurch 15y ago
  I've seen "management by walking around" go very badly. I worked in a company where status pings were a 2-4 times per day occurrence. It made it really hard to get anything done because these impromptu meetings wasted so much time and energy. I think the guy was just bored... And used to having 10-20 reports (instead of 3) which would make 2-4 status pings per day less intolerable. It's not quite enough to say I quit that job (after the manager failed to mend his ways and gave a ridiculous rant about the incompetence of the team as justification for the insanity). I fired that jerk. Standups may be annoying but at least they're scheduled. I still think daily team-wide (6+ people) standups are still a waste of time, but at least it's a documented waste of time.

impeachgod 15y ago

This reminds me of Richard Hamming's talk "You and Your Research": http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html "I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important."