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I feel like open offices are sometimes implemented by oblivious extroverts at the expense of introverts (and real productivity). I remember working with some e

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.

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.