4 ms·

About 10 years ago I was working for a game company. Most folks came in a few minutes before 10am when the daily standup was. I would come in at 6am, and gene

About 10 years ago I was working for a game company. Most folks came in a few minutes before 10am when the daily standup was. I would come in at 6am, and generally get all the productive work I would get done before anyone else got there. But after that, I would generally just circulate and see who was having problems, and help them. And honestly, helping the kids and teaching them was something I really enjoyed. So I see both sides of this debate. But on the other hand, at one point the manager told me he thought our productivity was a direct result of our open office setup, and I asked him who the top 3 developers were. He named them, and I had to point out that all 3 had noise canceling headphones on to block out all the collaboration.

agent281 3y ago
I feel like open offices are sometimes implemented by oblivious extroverts at the expense of introverts (and real productivity). I remember working with some extroverts who loved war room calls because it made them feel like they were doing something productive. When there was a problem they insisted on sitting in a conference call for hours. So I was trying to get the work done while they were talking about weather. They were feeling productive because they were on an important call and I felt unproductive because I couldn't tune out the noise and get the actual work done. Made the whole process really painful.
- slowmovintarget 3y ago
  Open offices were implemented because they were cheap. "Collaboration!" was the excuse to sell a far less pleasant working environment for developers. If you really want to enable collaboration, everyone gets their own office, and there are a few dedicated conference rooms for the team. Collaboration is maybe no more than 20% of the job. Focus is the rest.
  - bsder 3y ago
    > Open offices were implemented because they were cheap. Specifically because warehouse-type space in downtown SF was cheap right around 1998-2005. The most productive space is an office with a door that closes. IBM studied this. Bell studied this. Those studies haven't been invalidated.
    - throw10920 3y ago
      > IBM studied this. Bell studied this. Could you link to those? Google isn't returning helpful results for me here.
  - agent281 3y ago
    I know that's the financial/cynical case (and probably the more common one). However, I know people who genuinely prefer it because you all get to be in the same room and talk all day. They tend to be really extroverted folks.
    - slowmovintarget 3y ago
      Most software developers are introverts, though. So that may be fine for UX or graphics designers, but it is less reasonable for software development. My team would all be on headphones at their desks. It was an actual team rule that discussions were not held at desks, you took them to one of the open areas with white-board walls and hashed things out. Or a conference room. We did that. It would have been much easier with cubicles or offices. I used to work in cubicles, they were an improvement over open plan. Space for your books, semi-privacy, the white noise speakers didn't need to be turned up as loud (my gosh when those things were off it felt like you were no experiencing auditory suffocation). But a few of the senior engineers had offices. When we needed to collaborate, we'd gather in the office, hash stuff out, and go. It was good stuff. I've also done the war room thing. We took over an exec's office. I played music for the team at a reasonable level (CDs only, 'twas in the time before YouTube), and we built stuff. But even there we developed a code of behavior of how not to interrupt each other. Even that was better than open plan, because we could close the door and do our job. Every once in a while a PM would knock for a question or two. Open plan was worse. Now we all work from home, more or less. In some ways, that's even better for focus, but definitely worse for collaboration.
RugnirViking 3y ago
sounds great for productivity to have someone with your role in any office :) doesn't even matter if the person you are helping is less qualified as you or moreso, pair programming when stuck is one of the great joys of this profession imo and I dont get to do it as much as would be ideal. Maybe I should go to others more but im always stuck with my workload as it is. On a side note I'd love to go with noise cancelling headphones but im afraid of tinnitus - have you used them much, did you experience it?
- HowTheStoryEnds 3y ago
  Isn't tinnitus what you might get from eardamage from excessive sustained volume and such? Wouldn't ANC headphones be the counter to that?
  - RugnirViking 3y ago
    I've heard some stories that specifically active noise cancelling can cause it, especially when it's misconfigured so it's not perfectly in sync with sounds. I think I heard about it on a post here on hacker news a few months back?
    - HowTheStoryEnds 3y ago
      Damn, hadn't heard of that. I use ANC headphones a lot.

agent281 3y ago

I feel like open offices are sometimes implemented by oblivious extroverts at the expense of introverts (and real productivity). I remember working with some extroverts who loved war room calls because it made them feel like they were doing something productive. When there was a problem they insisted on sitting in a conference call for hours. So I was trying to get the work done while they were talking about weather. They were feeling productive because they were on an important call and I felt unproductive because I couldn't tune out the noise and get the actual work done. Made the whole process really painful.

slowmovintarget 3y ago
Open offices were implemented because they were cheap. "Collaboration!" was the excuse to sell a far less pleasant working environment for developers. If you really want to enable collaboration, everyone gets their own office, and there are a few dedicated conference rooms for the team. Collaboration is maybe no more than 20% of the job. Focus is the rest.
- bsder 3y ago
  > Open offices were implemented because they were cheap. Specifically because warehouse-type space in downtown SF was cheap right around 1998-2005. The most productive space is an office with a door that closes. IBM studied this. Bell studied this. Those studies haven't been invalidated.
  - throw10920 3y ago
    > IBM studied this. Bell studied this. Could you link to those? Google isn't returning helpful results for me here.
- agent281 3y ago
  I know that's the financial/cynical case (and probably the more common one). However, I know people who genuinely prefer it because you all get to be in the same room and talk all day. They tend to be really extroverted folks.
  - slowmovintarget 3y ago
    Most software developers are introverts, though. So that may be fine for UX or graphics designers, but it is less reasonable for software development. My team would all be on headphones at their desks. It was an actual team rule that discussions were not held at desks, you took them to one of the open areas with white-board walls and hashed things out. Or a conference room. We did that. It would have been much easier with cubicles or offices. I used to work in cubicles, they were an improvement over open plan. Space for your books, semi-privacy, the white noise speakers didn't need to be turned up as loud (my gosh when those things were off it felt like you were no experiencing auditory suffocation). But a few of the senior engineers had offices. When we needed to collaborate, we'd gather in the office, hash stuff out, and go. It was good stuff. I've also done the war room thing. We took over an exec's office. I played music for the team at a reasonable level (CDs only, 'twas in the time before YouTube), and we built stuff. But even there we developed a code of behavior of how not to interrupt each other. Even that was better than open plan, because we could close the door and do our job. Every once in a while a PM would knock for a question or two. Open plan was worse. Now we all work from home, more or less. In some ways, that's even better for focus, but definitely worse for collaboration.

RugnirViking 3y ago

sounds great for productivity to have someone with your role in any office :) doesn't even matter if the person you are helping is less qualified as you or moreso, pair programming when stuck is one of the great joys of this profession imo and I dont get to do it as much as would be ideal. Maybe I should go to others more but im always stuck with my workload as it is. On a side note I'd love to go with noise cancelling headphones but im afraid of tinnitus - have you used them much, did you experience it?

HowTheStoryEnds 3y ago
Isn't tinnitus what you might get from eardamage from excessive sustained volume and such? Wouldn't ANC headphones be the counter to that?
- RugnirViking 3y ago
  I've heard some stories that specifically active noise cancelling can cause it, especially when it's misconfigured so it's not perfectly in sync with sounds. I think I heard about it on a post here on hacker news a few months back?
  - HowTheStoryEnds 3y ago
    Damn, hadn't heard of that. I use ANC headphones a lot.