16 ms·

Open-plan offices must die

290 points by MattRogish 15y ago

peacemaker 15y ago
I'm currently working at a place which separates its programmers into offices of 2 or 3 people. I'm used to working in open plan offices and so far my current situation feels much like the worst of both worlds. Obviously someone, somewhere thought this would make us more productive but I can't see it. As with the article I agree that there should be some private space for programmers to work alone. Perhaps not 100% of the time but instead have the open plan aspect for communication and then a separate series of offices people can move to and close the door for some privacy. Not sure how well that'd work in some environments but it's something to think about.
- marshray 15y ago
  That would feel weird being in a small space with just one or two other people all the time. Having worked in different arrangements, I must say that every developer having their own office with a closable door is really the most productive. Though I have seen very small close-knit teams work sitting around the same table together. But most companies prefer to give the offices to managers and put software developers out in the cubes.
  - OneBytePerGreen 15y ago
    Ironic, isn't it. Managers whose jobs revolve around communication, coordination, and staying on top of things get offices with doors where they can isolate themselves. Developers whose job requires long stretches of focus and concentration are kept in open spaces with numerous distractions.
    - marshray 15y ago
      Many managers are frequently hosting mini-meetings or yelling into their speakerphone a lot. It's an act of mercy to everyone to give them a shuttable door. :-)
      - devs1010 15y ago
        yes, I agree, I once worked in a completely open office (no separate rooms, even for the manager / "CEO", it was a very small startup company and would have to listen to this sort of nonsense all day
    - peacemaker 15y ago
      Great point, I'll bring it up at the next (probably pointless) meeting we have :)
    - philwelch 15y ago
      And CEO's--who spend the most time outside the office--get the biggest offices at all. Offices aren't intended as workspace, they're intended as status symbols.
      - Drbble 15y ago
        I would never want work somewhere where the CEO had a large office. Unless maybe CEO was owner and is buying the office with his own money. At my last job, I had a bigger windowier office than the CEO, and our company had millions in revenue.
        philwelch 15y ago
        I don't think I've ever worked someplace where the CEO didn't have the biggest, nicest office in the company. Although in both cases the CEO was also founder and owned upwards of half the company. In any case, it doesn't really bother me as long as I have the resources to get my work done. It's just an interesting observation.
deleted 15y ago
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mhd 15y ago
I think it depends a lot on how the people work together. If you're doing a lot of impromptu "meetings", pair programming, brainstorming sessions etc, then this setup is probably an advantage. Personally, I can cancel out most distractions by a large enough monitor and headphones, but get really awkward when someone is standing behind me or walking by. So I need to have my back to a wall, whether it's an open office or not. I think we all do agree that offices without fixed desks are a big no-no. Some companies tried to do that a while ago, where you just have a cart with your stuff and work where you're needed (with thin clients way back when, and laptops a bit later). Yuck.
- packetslave 15y ago
  Yes, but "impromptu meetings" are toxic for getting things done when you're coding. An interrupt-driven culture makes it a nightmare to get into a flow state and stay there without constantly having to context-switch because some jerk has to have an answer RIGHT NOW and can't be bothered to send email.
  - mhd 15y ago
    Some teams benefit more from immediate responses than "flow state". If you're running a operation where there's lots of small features and design niggles, brainstorming them out with the rest of the team might be better than achieving perfect zanshin, but still having no idea, or doing 8 hours of back-and-forth intense coding then finding out that there's a standard library function or better algorithm that your co-worker could have told you hours ago. Granted, this would mostly apply to teams who are either very newbie-heavy or work on very small feature increments at a time - or both. And maybe some designers, but I'm not qualified to talk about that. For most other purposes, more isolated environments with a good tech solution for communication would be preferable (IRC, Basecamp, Jabbber etc.)
    - devs1010 15y ago
      Even then, you can keep communication via email or IM, just send a message to the person who may know, "hey, do we have any library for this, seems like we might", etc and they get back to you when they can, you don't have to have face to face to ask questions, as you said, mainly its important for newbies, but more experienced dev's should know when to ping someone even if the response won't be immediate.
txttran 15y ago
1. Distractions are not always bad. Given the number of hours devs can work, sometimes a short distraction is healthy. 2. Every developer knows to invest a good set of noise canceling headphones in an open office. This allows you to be in 'heads-down' mode and your coworkers know not to bother you unless it's work related.
- jes5199 15y ago
  I hate wearing headphones even more than I hate being able to hear all 250 of my coworkers at once.
- pavelkaroukin 15y ago
  about headphones - i hate these somehow. I am ok to use these while riding bike, when I wait in line, or working in coffee shop, but nothing is more pleasuring and actually helping concentrate like closed office with speakers playing Infected Mushrooms.
davidf18 15y ago
Private offices are definitely the most productive. Developers should avoid firms that do not understand this basic piece of information. Conversely, those firms that understand that their success depends on getting the best people will build office space to help recruit those people.
GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
Quiet introverts in an open plan office can work reasonably well but drop one extrovert into the mix and watch the stress levels rise and productivity plummet.
- pivo 15y ago
  I think that's what most people don't understand. Actually, I'm not sure if it's introverts vs. extroverts necessarily, but there are definitely some people who thrive in a busy, loud environment but many people who don't, such as my (admittedly introverted) self. My boss was incredulous when I told him that his shiny new office environment that packed 30+ people into a 30x24 ft. space was the worst environment I'd ever worked in. He told me that they'd done this because people had complained that the office was too quiet. <sigh>.
kruipen 15y ago
That's the one thing that MSFT really got right: private offices with doors that close.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
It surprises me how few companies, even in the start-up world, hire remote developers. I personally get more work done at home in a couple of hours than 8 hours at an office. Simply knowing that you might be distracted puts, at least for me, a strain on what gets accomplished.
- rmason 15y ago
  This has always totally baffled me. You can hire three developers in the Midwest for the price of two in SF. My friends in Silicon Valley say it's because if a developer is any good they move out there. Quite simply that is just not true. They may be less reluctant to work for a startup, but those that will aren't being asked.
  - marshray 15y ago
    I'm a developer currently in the Midwest. It's such a great place for families. Sure, I'd be willing to work for a startup again. But relocation to SF would be a challenge, due to the difference in CoL, housing prices, and level of services.
  - Arelius 15y ago
    > Quite simply that is not true. There seems to be evidence that this is, at least statistically, true. There will of course be good developers in the Midwest. But when you combine the draw of the valley, with the fact that most of the best developers got to where they are by the interactions they have with other developers. Add in that the best programmers are driven by their trade, and highly likely to move to where they can get the best, most challenging problems. I could easily see this to be true. Then, when most developers are hired by personal reference, how do you expect us to find these amazing developers hiding in the Midwest?
    - rmason 15y ago
      > how do you expect us to find these amazing developers hiding in the Midwest? I don't really think you're trying and that was my point. You're telling me the Midwest developers who move out to the Valley don't know a single great developer from back home who would jump to work for your startup as long as he could do it from home?
jmduke 15y ago
I don't understand how it's a confusing concept that one particular work setup isn't universally beneficial. I understand -- you don't like open-plan offices, you don't think that they're an effective environment. That doesn't mean that they're universally terrible; it may work for some companies, and it may fail for others.
CGamesPlay 15y ago
I really enjoy working in an open plan office. The distractions don't really bother me and I appreciate the energy level going around. I obviously use headphones to cancel out noise when I need to focus, sometimes just playing white noise tracks or no sound at all (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA is a personal favorite). Having a heavy distraction-oriented work flow forces you into a mode where you segment your tasks as atomically as possible, for example using the pomodoro technique. There are certainly times when a quiet space is necessary, and I will retreat away from my desk to a library or quiet corner where I'm not near people. I wonder how much of this is because I am young (24). My generation has grown up bombarded by distractions. So much so, in fact, that I find that there are equally many distractions inside of my computer as there are coming from the office plan.
- joezydeco 15y ago
  It's a big help if everyone around you understands the rules and nuances. Things like "If my headphones are on, do NOT talk to me or even tap me on the shoulder" It's when you try everything possible to shut out distractions (yes, including the Les Nessman tape on the floor, you older folk will know what I'm talking about) and it still doesn't work.
- marshray 15y ago
  It's not being young. In the olden days, before email even, software developers would close the door their personal office and then it was the telephone that was an interruption. On a bad day, they could get interrupted by that thing 4 or 5 times! :-) They were typically big interruptions though, as it was considered quite rude not to give the other person your full attention pretty much for as long as they wanted it.
hkarthik 15y ago
In 10 years of working with startups, small niche businesses, and large corps I've been exposed to the following: 1) Cube Farms in large corps 2) Private offices for everyone in a startup founded by Microsoft alumni. 3) Team Rooms of 3-5 people max. 4) Large open areas with no cube walls at all. 5) Working from home (what I do right now) Based on this experience, I think the optimal solution is the 3-5 person team room. It works well because it allows for a high degree of collaboration while keeping folks outside the team at arms length to limit distraction. In this environment, we shipped a working product written from scratch within 3 months. Open plan offices were by far the single most distracting environment. Ironically, I was at the same company when we switched from a 3 person team room to an open floor plan to cut costs. The productivity hit was enormous. Cube farms are actually better than open floor plans. They're far less impressive and drab, but the cube walls serve as a minor barrier to interruption since they require getting up and walking to make eye contact. Working from home is great for productivity as a single programmer, but collaboration is more of a challenge, and it requires solid leadership capable of defining problems very clearly and staying focused. That's a tall order for most startups where the ground is constantly shifting. Private offices were great for a single programmer working on a well defined problem, but difficult to foster the right collaborative environment. It's hard to institute concepts like pair programming and code review under this setup.
- karolisd 15y ago
  Our open office / team room is 4 people and it works out great. If one of us needs to zone out, we all have headphones for that. We're able joke around or shoot at the Nerf hoop. The only downside is phone calls, especially when we have more than one going on. Going from this to a cube farm or an isolated office seems depressing in comparison.
  - mindcrime 15y ago
    Going from this to a cube farm or an isolated office seems depressing in comparison. Being in individual offices doesn't necessarily mean being isolated to an extreme degree. As long as people choose to keep their doors open more often than not (in my experience, most people do) and as long as the team members who work together are physically located near each other, it's not - in my experience - a bad thing at all. In fact, assuming that people are given offices that are large enough to fit 2-3 people and are outfitted with guest chairs, it's no uncommon for 1-3 people who need to "huddle up" to do so in one of their respective offices. The difference between this and trying to encourage collaboration through "open plan" is that when somebody needs isolation it's easy to get, and the huddles are on-demand and last as long as needed and no longer. The other advantage to this is that small meetings can just take place in one individual's office, saving dedicated conference rooms for larger groups.
gordonguthrie 15y ago
This discussion starts from the premise that developer time is the most critical thing for which you must optimize your organisation. The most critical thing is usually the customer and optimizing for the customer means doing things differently: * having the developers take customer calls and help requests * increasing the amount of time the developers spend understanding the users - in order to reduce the amount of irrelevelant work being done * cultivating a culture of 'code not written' Do you really think that cranking code is the most important thing your organisation does?
- jim_h 15y ago
  In my experience, the developers should NOT be taking customer calls. Once a client knows that a developer will take calls, they will take advantage of it and try to get in new features and changes. There should be a layer between developers and clients. This helps the developers not get distracted or waste their time by explaining things that someone could do also (or better). Yes, the developers should be aware of what the clients are having issues with or what features they want, but there should be a 'firewall' between developers and clients. Not all the time, but most of the time. The firewall can be imaginary, but the client needs to believe it exists.
  - jrs235 15y ago
    I tend to agree with this point. There should be a firewall or layer between customer -> developer communications. The firewall intercepts/takes/handles incoming requests from the customer and forwards them on to the dev team or a developer who, if needed, can/will contact the customer. The customers should never have a direct line to developers unless you only want developers to work on "urgent" (regardless of important or unimportant) issues and "small/easy" features.
    - gordonguthrie 15y ago
      I am not saying that all developers should always be on customer support. But all developers should sometimes be on customer support - maybe 1 day a week, maybe more.
lpolovets 15y ago
TL;DR summary: I find open-plan offices very distracting, and I know some other people do, therefore they are distracting for everyone and should be eliminated. I don't understand why there are so many blog posts describing how "X must die" or "Y is the only good approach to doing Z." If something works well for you, then that's wonderful! Please share it and explain the benefits and downsides and convince me to give Your Favorite Method a try. Describing how Your Favorite Method is actually The Only Reasonable Method (and by extension, that I am wrong/stupid/naive/etc. to be doing anything else) will rarely win me over.
- larrys 15y ago
  *"I don't understand why there are so many blog posts describing how "X must die" or "Y is the only good approach to doing Z."" Quite simply because this title: "Open Plan Offices Must Die!" is better link bait than "Why I don't like Open Plan Offices".
  - re_todd 15y ago
    I imagine this would not do well either: "Open Plan Offices are Usually Not Really for Me, Just Sayin"
    - MortenK 15y ago
      "I prefer private offices I guess, but open plan are okay too"
      - re_todd 15y ago
        Haha, even better!
- roc 15y ago
  > "I don't understand why there are so many blog posts describing how "X must die" or "Y is the only good approach to doing Z."" Because they're click-bait. Authors of articles like that don't (primarily) care about making a sound argument. They care about attention.
CPlatypus 15y ago
Hey, crazy idea: why don't more employers give workers a choice? As a quick read of this thread will show, some people like quiet so they can concentrate, while others like the interaction and "energy" of being with others. That's fine. Live and let live. A startup might have to choose one kind of space, but you don't have to get all that large before it becomes possible to have separate areas/floors for different work styles. It seems like such a no-brainer, but I've only ever seen companies do "one size fits all" or segregation by status. Any employer who let me choose whether to work in a private office or a 2-5 person office or a big open area would definitely get some extra points from me.
- keithpeter 15y ago
  Could be tricky getting the choices sorted out - will you have enough people who want the open plan arrangements? will people just go for private offices on a status basis? In teaching we have various 'learning style' audits. A common one is the VARK profile http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire Could you imagine what a 'preferred productive environment' questionnaire might look like? Would this help make sensible choices and slot people in to existing teams?
  - v0cab 15y ago
    I thought that 'learning styles' stuff was discredited.
    - keithpeter 15y ago
      http://www.sportscoachuk.org/sites/default/files/Coffield%20(2004a)%20Should%20we%20be%20using%20learning%20styles.pdf http://www.sportscoachuk.org/sites/default/files/Coffield%20... Frank Coffield and team evaluated the field some time ago. VARK was one of the few that they found had some merit. I find that a visual explanation can help some students over the 'textbook' verbal/arithmetical presentation. See http://www.slideshare.net/keithpeter/reverse-percentages-a-visual-approach-presentation http://www.slideshare.net/keithpeter/reverse-percentages-a-v... (Rendering oddly in Firefox, slideshare used to be so useful...)
metajack 15y ago
The book Peopleware backs up the failure of open plan offices with references and data. For any kind of knowledge work, distraction is kryptonite. I really enjoyed the book, and the info about open plan offices was really interesting. I was previously a fan of the open plan, but now I think if I ever design another office, it would be common areas and offices that close.
- kabdib 15y ago
  We had this setup at Apple (early Infinite Loop days) and it rocked. The best environment I've ever done engineering in, period. Being able to shut your door for a few hours to crank stuff out is incredibly important. Being able to walk a few feet and collaborate is also incredibly important. They're not at odds. It doesn't take rocket science to design a space that works. It takes something harder: Money, and the ability for non-engineers to listen to people who haven't been drinking the latest silver bullet kool-aid. "People can't concentrate in noisy environments." How hard is that to get?
- jtbigwoo 15y ago
  Peopleware has some great data about how listening to music can lower distractions but also reduces problem solving ability. The upshot was that test subjects could plow through code while listening to music, but tended to miss optimizations and shortcuts.
  - nvarsj 15y ago
    I think Peopleware is a great book, but it makes bold claims with very little experimental data. I personally find this hurts the integrity of the book and would have preferred if the authors were a bit more humble. The music vs silence point, for example, is based on a tiny experiment with a small sample size. The kind of conclusions that are drawn from it in the book are a stretch.
noarchy 15y ago
Most developers who I've known are easily-distracted from being in the "zone", and I include myself in that list. I'm always more productive when working remotely, where I can control my work environment. Second in order of preference is having a private office. It doesn't matter if it is little more than a closet with a door. I've been in nearly every scenario described by folks here on HN, and the most toxic was working in an open office space, and having an exit door behind me, to boot.
akeefer 15y ago
At Guidewire we've worked in an open-plan office for basically the whole life of the company (roughly 10 years), and it's worked really well for us (by whatever metric you like: successful products, financial success, employee retention). Yes, it can be distracting to people, so most people bring headphones, and it's important for people to be considerate and move discussions or phone calls into side offices and conference rooms. At least with the type of software we build, though, communication is absolutely critical, and it's amazing how much a difference of even 10 feet makes in the frequency with which people talk. The optimum layout for us is roughly 1 or 2 clusters of 4-6 desks per "pod" (i.e. a cross-functional team consisting of developers, product managers, and qa that are all working on the same area of the product). At that level, when people are talking about something, what they're talking about is almost always relevant to you, so it's not necessarily a distraction: they're talking about your code and your project, so it's a good thing that you can overhear and participate in the conversation if you wish. If you didn't hear those conversations, you'd be out of the loop. It's often better to be a little more distracted and all on the same page than have a team of 5 engineers plowing ahead in different directions. That's a common conflation when talking about software engineering in general: it's not just how much you get done, it's what you get done. If you get a ton of work done on the wrong thing, you might feel really productive, but you're not actually creating any value. At least with our software, a high level of communication is necessary for most projects to ensure that everyone is on the same page and rowing in the same direction. When that communication breaks down, projects start to fail. Your mileage may vary, of course, depending on the size of your team and the nature of what you're building. (And it goes without saying that a giant warehouse with desks arranged like an 1890's cloth factory is a terrible idea; you have to consider lines of sight, and acoustics, and other environmental things. Not all open plan offices are the same.) But this assumption that open plan offices have been "proven" to be sub-optimal flies in the face of plenty of empirical evidence from companies like mine that have used them very successfully.
- enginous 15y ago
  I'm glad this is working for you. I agree that different teams will probably respond in different ways to open-plan offices, and that not all such offices are created equally. However, your claim that this has worked "really well" for you "for basically the whole life of the company ... by whatever metric" is not "plenty of empirical evidence." It's anecdotal, and most importantly lacks a comparison to a different arrangement (a control). You have no idea if any of your chosen metrics (however debatable for team effectiveness) would be better for your current team in a different set-up. I also disagree that just because the conversations people hear are about the product, constantly overhearing conversations is therefore productive. If you need everyone in the team to talk about every decision at all times, this is probably either brought on by too few conversations or a lacking framework for productive communication. > If you didn't hear those conversations, you'd be out of the loop. Why aren't you keeping track of decisions and new information formally, e.g. by e-mail? How do you keep employees functional after they get sick or go on a leave? If you have processes for that, then it is not absolutely essential to hear those conversations; employees can read the important stuff at the end of the day.
bh42222 15y ago
Offices, real offices for each developer are best. However, open-plan is still better than cubicles. Cubicles share all the problems of open-plans + you stare at the walls of your cubicle. I'd love to have an office but I prefer open plans over cubicles.
- amackera 15y ago
  I hate cubicles. Cubicles are soul-crushing abominations.
ChrisNorstrom 15y ago
One day when I have a startup of my own. I'm going to have a mixture of small offices with doors, and larger team rooms, and open space lobbies. Everyone must have wheels on their entire desk. And they'll be able to move around to whatever office suits them for that day, for that problem. That would be my dream because that's what I would like myself. Having options and being able to decide for myself.
- oacgnol 15y ago
  From what I've read [1], Valve employs the desk-on-wheels configuration to great success. The higher-order function to this is that teams can be fluid and the process for reconfiguring for new projects is as easy as wheeling your desk around. [1] http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/where-the-science-happens-the-penny-arcade-report-goes-for-a-tour-though-th http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/where-t...
  - marshray 15y ago
    Looks nice! I must admit when you said "desk-on-wheels" my first thought was that it sounded like something from a Terry Gilliam movie.
dfc 15y ago
Absolutist hyperbolic linkbaity titles must die...
brudgers 15y ago
Open plan offices can solve some problems really well - providing fresh air and daylight to a large number of people efficiently, when executed well. They can provide a creative, collaborative and egalitarian studio like environment, again when executed well. What they struggle with primarily is sound isolation, attenuation, and masking. Secondarily they struggle with visual and olfactory distractions. Designing an open office to look like an Apple store is a mistake. Apple stores are designed to be lively and animated - there's a reason for all those hard surfaces, particularly the glass ceiling. That reason is that they reflect sound. There's also a reason coffee shops provide big overstuffed chairs and carpeted floors.
tonylemesmer 15y ago
Slightly forced connection in the intro to the design of Apple stores. Open plan offices have been around plenty longer than Apple shops. It is good to have a mix of spaces, but designing people's main work space to be a place for constant interruptions does seem to be a fundamental flaw. Breakout rooms and private spaces should be in the mix.
zinssmeister 15y ago
I was never a fan of open-plan office space. As a programmer it's like trying to get work done at a school cafeteria. Which doesn't work without a good pair of head phones. How stupid, if you think about it, we all sit around with head phones, trying to stay in the zone. Yeah I get work done in such environments, but my best work was created in a 2-4 people office or at home, working on problems by myself while connected to a team chat.
- amackera 15y ago
  To me, it's more like working in a busy computer lab. This works well for me since I was conditioned through university to be productive in a lab environment, to get things done efficiently and to not be distracted by other groups or people in a lab setting. I think there should be both quiet isolation environments and communal lab-type environments in software companies. It's surprising to me how there is so much emphasis in hunkering down in one place and staying put.
tzs 15y ago
I like this kind of layout for a group of people in a department or project: +---------+---------+ | | | | | | +-----+ -+- +-----+ | | | | | | +-----+ +-----+ | | | | | | +-----+ +-----+ | | | | | | +-------| |-------+ The area in the middle is a common area for the group. It can have a table or two and chairs so people can hang out there, or even bring their laptops out and work there, when they are feeling social. The bottom and middle side rooms are private offices. They should have doors that close and be reasonably insulated from sound, so that a worker can work without disturbance when they want to. Ideally, the wall wall facing the central area should have a big window (with drapes or blinds!) so that the person in the office can see if anything interesting is going on in the central area. Each office should have its own light switch capable of turning off all lights in that office. The top two rooms can be bigger offices, or conference rooms, or break rooms for breaks that might be too noisy in the central area. The break in the bottom wall is the connection to the hallway. With this environment, you can easily work in private, no distraction mode (go into your office, close the door, and close the blinds), or in full social mode (take your laptop to the middle area), or in between (work in your office, but leave the door and window open, so you can keep an ear and eye on what's going on in the social area. Note that if you have two groups working on different things, but that have a manager or senior engineer working with both, you can extend this concept and put the two groups side by side, and shift and stretch one of the offices and make it connect to both groups, so that common manager's office is in both groups: +---------+---------+---------+---------+ | | | | | | | | | | +-----+ -+- +-----+-----+ -+- +-----+ | | | | | | | | | | +-----+ +-----+-----+ +-----+ | | | | | | | | +-----+ +-----+-----+ +-----+ | | | | | | | | | | +-------| |-------+-------| |-------+
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  My college dorm was like this: Six little one-person rooms along a common hallway with a common room at the end. It was like heaven. And I got a lot done, back then.
isb 15y ago
The ideal setup that I've found is having two people per office that we have at my current workplace: - cuts out distractions: you can only get distracted if you decide to talk with your office-mate. If either of us wants to chat with someone else, we move our discussion to a meeting room. - avoids the isolation and slacking off that a single person per office setup generates. - if office-mates are chosen intelligently, it can result in good collaboration for e.g. pairing a mentor with a junior programmer. A good idea would be to change the pairs every few months.
gruseom 15y ago
Every time this subject comes up on HN, most people agree that open offices suck. As a programmer, I don't understand this. I like collaborating. Software is a team sport. I want a space that's optimized for teamwork. Certainly sometimes I want to go away and think by myself. I want that option, but not as the default. If programmers don't work well together, then by Conway's Law neither will their code. Beyond that, batting ideas around is just more fun than playing the solitary genius - and produces more satisfying results. The kind of open office I like, though, is one in which the people are all working on the same system. I agree that noise and interference from unrelated activity is a disaster. It's very simple: everything should be organized around the team.
- arohner 15y ago
  Personally, my problem with open plans isn't my team members, it's everyone else in the building who isn't on my team. This is the point that the "team office" plan tries to address. Everyone you want to talk to is in the same room, everyone from other departments, people on manager schedule, etc, is behind a closed door.
- DrCatbox 15y ago
  Have you ever worked in open space environments? The noise is aweful, the distrubances are maximized, people walking all over the place, it is awkward when somebody comes to me and we dont have a place to talk other than right there - and thus distrub all my nearby collegues. We have "cubes" for that, but cubes are too formal, you need almost an invite, and when you do, its too crowded inside, and then you are away from your workplace where you have all the stuff. Sure, bring your laptop, if you have one, the desk computers we have are not so easy to bring along.
  - gruseom 15y ago
    Right, that's dreadful (see my last paragraph). But when most people object to open spaces they do so in terms of private offices. I don't want that either. I want a team area. Doesn't seem so hard.
- danellis 15y ago
mortenjorck 15y ago
I think open-plan offices work if you have the right kind of HVAC system. Seriously, hear me out: I work in an open-plan office. I didn't realize it when I first started, but there's actually quite a bit of white noise from the HVAC system. Maybe it's the nature of white noise that it wasn't immediately apparent. One day, about a month after I had started, someone changed the thermostat settings. The constant white noise shut off. In the silence, the sense of space of the office immediately changed. Every footstep on the loft floor was suddenly audible. All the design conversations and dev pairing suddenly seemed much nearer, the words much harder to ignore. It was like the office had shrunk. We tried a few hours this way, and finally set the HVAC system back to how it had been, filling the office once again with a constant, hushing whoosh. The space was back to normal.
- recursive 15y ago
  My employer actually has white noise generators that intentionally create this effect.
  - mkramlich 15y ago
    the polite term for that is the marketing department ;)
- albertsun 15y ago
  Even better, our open plan office purportedly has active noise canceling systems similar to what are in noise canceling headphones built into the ceiling. This is to dampen noise from elsewhere in the office and keep distractions elsewhere from being too distracting.
  - wpietri 15y ago
    If you think they really work, could you say who makes those?
    - albertsun 15y ago
      Unfortunately, I don't know anything about them really.
funkah 15y ago
This preoccupation with "flow" is getting to be a bit much, I think. It's important to be able to focus on your work, but it's also important not to become like "The Princess and the Pea". You need to be able to do good work when conditions are not 100% exactly the way you want.
- philwelch 15y ago
  Okay, but I still don't see this as a relevant or useful contribution to the discussion about how to lay out an office. I really don't like the attitude of "we're going to deliberately make it harder for you to do your job, and we expect you to man up and deal with it."
- Drbble 15y ago
  Does this analysis apply to pilots and surgeons as well?
growingconcern 15y ago
There's one reason why open plan will always rule over individual offices or 3-4 person team rooms: you can fit more people into open plans. If square footage matters to your bottom line (ie your office isn't out in the warehouse district) then you can get more employees per sq ft. Bitch all you want, but it ain't gonna change.
wpietri 15y ago
I think it depends somewhat on how you do it. We're very collaborative, so being locked away in rooms would be a pain. We all sit together, but we reduce the pain of open-plan offices by being careful to minimize distraction. E.g., phone calls happen in other rooms. Meetings that don't involve the whole team go in the conference room.
nirvana 15y ago
Before I quit working for other people I used this as a barometer of whether a company was run by idiots or not. IF they had an open plan office, and were apologetic about it, then they might be redeemable. IF they were proud of it, then idiots. Seriously. Sales guys in a big room, they probably benefit from the vibe. Programmers need distractions to be productive? Really? In fact, the last company I worked at had hired way too young, and they had a bunch of kids who thought that being in your office writing code was somehow "Bad" because you were "siloed away". They liked to hang out all together at one big table, and chat away all day long with their laptops out. In the time I was there, I don't think they ever realized they were getting nothing done. (I was curious as to whether they were onto something or not, so I tracked the number of stories and features they committed vs. me and my officemate who at 26 was the "old man" of the bunch, though still much younger than me he was old enough to know what flow was.) Result: the two of us were about 4 times more productive than the 5 of them. One of those five, though, was the "director of engineering" (20 years old) and was constantly chastising us for spending too much time in our offices. When it became clear that this was going to affect my evaluation, I chose to exit that company. (They folded about a year later, never having accomplished the short term goal they were working on while I was there.) But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe some people are more productive in groups of 2-3. That's fine. Set up offices for them to work that way. Just let me have some damn peace and quiet so I can get work done! (and I never seem to have a problem hooking up with other engineers to talk about architecture or what have you to keep us coordinated, though often this is via email or chat... which is much less interrupting than a tap on the shoulder.) ----------- On further thought-- maybe designers and people whose job is to sling HTML or javascript don't need to have "Flow". Maybe the jobs for these people are light enough that there is no context switching cost or the cost is low. That's not the case for my work or my career. There's often a very large amount of stuff I need to track in my head... because I'm generally solving hard problems on the back end, rather than making UIs or web pages.
- randomdata 15y ago
  > Programmers need distractions to be productive? Really? Sometimes. I work from home, so I'm mostly distraction free, but sometimes I need distractions to get the motivation flowing again. I think the perfect office would have the opportunity to work under many different environments, depending on your mood. Moderation is, like always, the key.
jjcm 15y ago
I'm at Microsoft right now. Microsoft has a policy that everyone gets their own office, if they want it. They "if they want it" part there is key - myself and everyone else on my team was given the choice to have either an open work environment or an office environment. Most of my team and I chose to pursue the open route (a lot of our team is composed of designers, not programmers). I've enjoyed it quite a bit for meetings and other collaborative efforts. When I need to get a lot of my own work done though, I escape somewhere else or do it from home. The reverse is true as well - I know some people who chose to have offices who will work a couple days a week out in the open, simply to collaborate with others more closely. Each has its benefits. Open-plan offices shouldn't die, but people need to realize that they come with ups and downs.
teek 15y ago
I wouldn't mind a low-height cubicle farm. That is nobody can see each other if everyone is sitting down, if you stand up you can see people without getting on your toes. I would also arrange the cubicles such that your back is never to the entrance. So you know when someone is walking into your space.
- jw_ 15y ago
  Such things exist and are horrible to work in. I worked in a very large dev office that was essentially a gigantic low-height cube farm and sound carried for-frigging-EVER - conversations 20m away may as well have been in your lap. Plus, if you happen to be taller sitting down than the wall height (as I was), then you also get the nice distraction of seeing developers and other worker bees shuffling around the place. If you are in such a space, then yes, snagging a desk that does not expose your back to the entrance is key to maintaining some level of sanity. A better solution long-term is to find a less brain-damaged environment to work in.
caublestone 15y ago
I've always like Pixars office. Certain areas for people that need to work in groups and offices in upstairs hall ways for people to work in private offices. Sort of the best of both worlds. http://www.home-designing.com/2011/06/pixars-office-interiors-2 http://www.home-designing.com/2011/06/pixars-office-interior...
URSpider94 15y ago
What I would really like to see is a company where employees get to choose from a variety of seating arrangements to pick one that meets their needs. I know some people who absolutely thrive on the open-plan office; these are probably the same people who did all of their homework with the TV on. I also know people who have to wear aircraft-grade earmuffs to avoid being disturbed/distracted by the sound of people walking by their office door.
watmough 15y ago
One layout that works well is small / tiny offices around an external wall, with conference rooms, bathrooms, corridors etc in the middle. My current job is at quite old building (70's) with a floor laid out like this, and it's just fantastic. I have enough space for some computers, a room I can work in in peace and quiet, and just enough space for small meetings and co-working when needed. Any negative effects of being in a private office can be canceled by having office communicator, Yahoo! chat etc. Typical 70's office buildings seem to often be laid out like this.
organico 15y ago
I couldn't agree more. I need a quiet place alone to program, and I've just recently moved into a coworking space. Total loss of productivity. I'm going to start working from home again, at least 2-3 days a week...
wolframarnold 15y ago
The most effective setups I've seen and experienced are those that keep noise and distractions low, communication easy and incentives to drop into and stay in the zone maximized. Incidentally these factors are not limited to just workspace layout. I think overly focusing on work space at the expense of other crucial factors is another case of "sub-optimization" and thereby not "lean". Some of these factors are: * Gathering the team in one place and ideally at the same time. Standup meetings do this, as well as catered breakfasts and lunches. * Open spaces that provide ready access to other folks, engineers, designers, product owners. It's amazing how high the hurdle of having to get up and open a door can be and how amazing the cost of inferior decisions made by coders is when asking someone requires overcoming hurdles. Remember that the desired behavior must also be the easiest behavior. * No employee-specific workstations. The easier it is to move around and the more common the computer setup the better collaboration can ensue. * Subdued noise levels. This can be accomplished through white noise generators, Dj Tiesto, sound swallowing wall fabrics and carpets, etc. * Systems that capture project data in structured ways, minimizing the need and role of email. * Separate gathering spaces for socializing, ping pong, lunches, meetings, phone calls to not disturb the main work area. * A prevailing practice of pair programming and TDD. Interestingly, some of the most successful development shops like Pivotal Labs and Hashrocket do exactly that.
jebberjeb 15y ago
I see someone read "Quiet". It all depends on the people on the team. Some people work great in the same room. Some people don't. You've got to either pick your people based on office configuration, or pick your office configuration based on your people -- I'll take the latter.

290 points by MattRogish 15y ago

I'm currently working at a place which separates its programmers into offices of 2 or 3 people. I'm used to working in open plan offices and so far my current situation feels much like the worst of both worlds. Obviously someone, somewhere thought this would make us more productive but I can't see it. As with the article I agree that there should be some private space for programmers to work alone. Perhaps not 100% of the time but instead have the open plan aspect for communication and then a separate series of offices people can move to and close the door for some privacy. Not sure how well that'd work in some environments but it's something to think about.

marshray 15y ago
That would feel weird being in a small space with just one or two other people all the time. Having worked in different arrangements, I must say that every developer having their own office with a closable door is really the most productive. Though I have seen very small close-knit teams work sitting around the same table together. But most companies prefer to give the offices to managers and put software developers out in the cubes.
- OneBytePerGreen 15y ago
  Ironic, isn't it. Managers whose jobs revolve around communication, coordination, and staying on top of things get offices with doors where they can isolate themselves. Developers whose job requires long stretches of focus and concentration are kept in open spaces with numerous distractions.
  - marshray 15y ago
    Many managers are frequently hosting mini-meetings or yelling into their speakerphone a lot. It's an act of mercy to everyone to give them a shuttable door. :-)
    - devs1010 15y ago
      yes, I agree, I once worked in a completely open office (no separate rooms, even for the manager / "CEO", it was a very small startup company and would have to listen to this sort of nonsense all day
  - peacemaker 15y ago
    Great point, I'll bring it up at the next (probably pointless) meeting we have :)
  - philwelch 15y ago
    And CEO's--who spend the most time outside the office--get the biggest offices at all. Offices aren't intended as workspace, they're intended as status symbols.
    - Drbble 15y ago
      I would never want work somewhere where the CEO had a large office. Unless maybe CEO was owner and is buying the office with his own money. At my last job, I had a bigger windowier office than the CEO, and our company had millions in revenue.
      - philwelch 15y ago
        I don't think I've ever worked someplace where the CEO didn't have the biggest, nicest office in the company. Although in both cases the CEO was also founder and owned upwards of half the company. In any case, it doesn't really bother me as long as I have the resources to get my work done. It's just an interesting observation.

deleted 15y ago

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mhd 15y ago

I think it depends a lot on how the people work together. If you're doing a lot of impromptu "meetings", pair programming, brainstorming sessions etc, then this setup is probably an advantage. Personally, I can cancel out most distractions by a large enough monitor and headphones, but get really awkward when someone is standing behind me or walking by. So I need to have my back to a wall, whether it's an open office or not. I think we all do agree that offices without fixed desks are a big no-no. Some companies tried to do that a while ago, where you just have a cart with your stuff and work where you're needed (with thin clients way back when, and laptops a bit later). Yuck.

packetslave 15y ago
Yes, but "impromptu meetings" are toxic for getting things done when you're coding. An interrupt-driven culture makes it a nightmare to get into a flow state and stay there without constantly having to context-switch because some jerk has to have an answer RIGHT NOW and can't be bothered to send email.
- mhd 15y ago
  Some teams benefit more from immediate responses than "flow state". If you're running a operation where there's lots of small features and design niggles, brainstorming them out with the rest of the team might be better than achieving perfect zanshin, but still having no idea, or doing 8 hours of back-and-forth intense coding then finding out that there's a standard library function or better algorithm that your co-worker could have told you hours ago. Granted, this would mostly apply to teams who are either very newbie-heavy or work on very small feature increments at a time - or both. And maybe some designers, but I'm not qualified to talk about that. For most other purposes, more isolated environments with a good tech solution for communication would be preferable (IRC, Basecamp, Jabbber etc.)
  - devs1010 15y ago
    Even then, you can keep communication via email or IM, just send a message to the person who may know, "hey, do we have any library for this, seems like we might", etc and they get back to you when they can, you don't have to have face to face to ask questions, as you said, mainly its important for newbies, but more experienced dev's should know when to ping someone even if the response won't be immediate.

txttran 15y ago

1. Distractions are not always bad. Given the number of hours devs can work, sometimes a short distraction is healthy. 2. Every developer knows to invest a good set of noise canceling headphones in an open office. This allows you to be in 'heads-down' mode and your coworkers know not to bother you unless it's work related.

jes5199 15y ago
I hate wearing headphones even more than I hate being able to hear all 250 of my coworkers at once.
pavelkaroukin 15y ago
about headphones - i hate these somehow. I am ok to use these while riding bike, when I wait in line, or working in coffee shop, but nothing is more pleasuring and actually helping concentrate like closed office with speakers playing Infected Mushrooms.

davidf18 15y ago

Private offices are definitely the most productive. Developers should avoid firms that do not understand this basic piece of information. Conversely, those firms that understand that their success depends on getting the best people will build office space to help recruit those people.

GiraffeNecktie 15y ago

Quiet introverts in an open plan office can work reasonably well but drop one extrovert into the mix and watch the stress levels rise and productivity plummet.

pivo 15y ago
I think that's what most people don't understand. Actually, I'm not sure if it's introverts vs. extroverts necessarily, but there are definitely some people who thrive in a busy, loud environment but many people who don't, such as my (admittedly introverted) self. My boss was incredulous when I told him that his shiny new office environment that packed 30+ people into a 30x24 ft. space was the worst environment I'd ever worked in. He told me that they'd done this because people had complained that the office was too quiet. <sigh>.

kruipen 15y ago

That's the one thing that MSFT really got right: private offices with doors that close.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

It surprises me how few companies, even in the start-up world, hire remote developers. I personally get more work done at home in a couple of hours than 8 hours at an office. Simply knowing that you might be distracted puts, at least for me, a strain on what gets accomplished.

rmason 15y ago
This has always totally baffled me. You can hire three developers in the Midwest for the price of two in SF. My friends in Silicon Valley say it's because if a developer is any good they move out there. Quite simply that is just not true. They may be less reluctant to work for a startup, but those that will aren't being asked.
- marshray 15y ago
  I'm a developer currently in the Midwest. It's such a great place for families. Sure, I'd be willing to work for a startup again. But relocation to SF would be a challenge, due to the difference in CoL, housing prices, and level of services.
- Arelius 15y ago
  > Quite simply that is not true. There seems to be evidence that this is, at least statistically, true. There will of course be good developers in the Midwest. But when you combine the draw of the valley, with the fact that most of the best developers got to where they are by the interactions they have with other developers. Add in that the best programmers are driven by their trade, and highly likely to move to where they can get the best, most challenging problems. I could easily see this to be true. Then, when most developers are hired by personal reference, how do you expect us to find these amazing developers hiding in the Midwest?
  - rmason 15y ago
    > how do you expect us to find these amazing developers hiding in the Midwest? I don't really think you're trying and that was my point. You're telling me the Midwest developers who move out to the Valley don't know a single great developer from back home who would jump to work for your startup as long as he could do it from home?

jmduke 15y ago

I don't understand how it's a confusing concept that one particular work setup isn't universally beneficial. I understand -- you don't like open-plan offices, you don't think that they're an effective environment. That doesn't mean that they're universally terrible; it may work for some companies, and it may fail for others.

CGamesPlay 15y ago

I really enjoy working in an open plan office. The distractions don't really bother me and I appreciate the energy level going around. I obviously use headphones to cancel out noise when I need to focus, sometimes just playing white noise tracks or no sound at all (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA is a personal favorite). Having a heavy distraction-oriented work flow forces you into a mode where you segment your tasks as atomically as possible, for example using the pomodoro technique. There are certainly times when a quiet space is necessary, and I will retreat away from my desk to a library or quiet corner where I'm not near people. I wonder how much of this is because I am young (24). My generation has grown up bombarded by distractions. So much so, in fact, that I find that there are equally many distractions inside of my computer as there are coming from the office plan.

joezydeco 15y ago
It's a big help if everyone around you understands the rules and nuances. Things like "If my headphones are on, do NOT talk to me or even tap me on the shoulder" It's when you try everything possible to shut out distractions (yes, including the Les Nessman tape on the floor, you older folk will know what I'm talking about) and it still doesn't work.
marshray 15y ago
It's not being young. In the olden days, before email even, software developers would close the door their personal office and then it was the telephone that was an interruption. On a bad day, they could get interrupted by that thing 4 or 5 times! :-) They were typically big interruptions though, as it was considered quite rude not to give the other person your full attention pretty much for as long as they wanted it.

hkarthik 15y ago

In 10 years of working with startups, small niche businesses, and large corps I've been exposed to the following: 1) Cube Farms in large corps 2) Private offices for everyone in a startup founded by Microsoft alumni. 3) Team Rooms of 3-5 people max. 4) Large open areas with no cube walls at all. 5) Working from home (what I do right now) Based on this experience, I think the optimal solution is the 3-5 person team room. It works well because it allows for a high degree of collaboration while keeping folks outside the team at arms length to limit distraction. In this environment, we shipped a working product written from scratch within 3 months. Open plan offices were by far the single most distracting environment. Ironically, I was at the same company when we switched from a 3 person team room to an open floor plan to cut costs. The productivity hit was enormous. Cube farms are actually better than open floor plans. They're far less impressive and drab, but the cube walls serve as a minor barrier to interruption since they require getting up and walking to make eye contact. Working from home is great for productivity as a single programmer, but collaboration is more of a challenge, and it requires solid leadership capable of defining problems very clearly and staying focused. That's a tall order for most startups where the ground is constantly shifting. Private offices were great for a single programmer working on a well defined problem, but difficult to foster the right collaborative environment. It's hard to institute concepts like pair programming and code review under this setup.

karolisd 15y ago
Our open office / team room is 4 people and it works out great. If one of us needs to zone out, we all have headphones for that. We're able joke around or shoot at the Nerf hoop. The only downside is phone calls, especially when we have more than one going on. Going from this to a cube farm or an isolated office seems depressing in comparison.
- mindcrime 15y ago
  Going from this to a cube farm or an isolated office seems depressing in comparison. Being in individual offices doesn't necessarily mean being isolated to an extreme degree. As long as people choose to keep their doors open more often than not (in my experience, most people do) and as long as the team members who work together are physically located near each other, it's not - in my experience - a bad thing at all. In fact, assuming that people are given offices that are large enough to fit 2-3 people and are outfitted with guest chairs, it's no uncommon for 1-3 people who need to "huddle up" to do so in one of their respective offices. The difference between this and trying to encourage collaboration through "open plan" is that when somebody needs isolation it's easy to get, and the huddles are on-demand and last as long as needed and no longer. The other advantage to this is that small meetings can just take place in one individual's office, saving dedicated conference rooms for larger groups.

gordonguthrie 15y ago

This discussion starts from the premise that developer time is the most critical thing for which you must optimize your organisation. The most critical thing is usually the customer and optimizing for the customer means doing things differently: * having the developers take customer calls and help requests * increasing the amount of time the developers spend understanding the users - in order to reduce the amount of irrelevelant work being done * cultivating a culture of 'code not written' Do you really think that cranking code is the most important thing your organisation does?

jim_h 15y ago
In my experience, the developers should NOT be taking customer calls. Once a client knows that a developer will take calls, they will take advantage of it and try to get in new features and changes. There should be a layer between developers and clients. This helps the developers not get distracted or waste their time by explaining things that someone could do also (or better). Yes, the developers should be aware of what the clients are having issues with or what features they want, but there should be a 'firewall' between developers and clients. Not all the time, but most of the time. The firewall can be imaginary, but the client needs to believe it exists.
- jrs235 15y ago
  I tend to agree with this point. There should be a firewall or layer between customer -> developer communications. The firewall intercepts/takes/handles incoming requests from the customer and forwards them on to the dev team or a developer who, if needed, can/will contact the customer. The customers should never have a direct line to developers unless you only want developers to work on "urgent" (regardless of important or unimportant) issues and "small/easy" features.
  - gordonguthrie 15y ago
    I am not saying that all developers should always be on customer support. But all developers should sometimes be on customer support - maybe 1 day a week, maybe more.

lpolovets 15y ago

TL;DR summary: I find open-plan offices very distracting, and I know some other people do, therefore they are distracting for everyone and should be eliminated. I don't understand why there are so many blog posts describing how "X must die" or "Y is the only good approach to doing Z." If something works well for you, then that's wonderful! Please share it and explain the benefits and downsides and convince me to give Your Favorite Method a try. Describing how Your Favorite Method is actually The Only Reasonable Method (and by extension, that I am wrong/stupid/naive/etc. to be doing anything else) will rarely win me over.

larrys 15y ago
*"I don't understand why there are so many blog posts describing how "X must die" or "Y is the only good approach to doing Z."" Quite simply because this title: "Open Plan Offices Must Die!" is better link bait than "Why I don't like Open Plan Offices".
- re_todd 15y ago
  I imagine this would not do well either: "Open Plan Offices are Usually Not Really for Me, Just Sayin"
  - MortenK 15y ago
    "I prefer private offices I guess, but open plan are okay too"
    - re_todd 15y ago
      Haha, even better!
roc 15y ago
> "I don't understand why there are so many blog posts describing how "X must die" or "Y is the only good approach to doing Z."" Because they're click-bait. Authors of articles like that don't (primarily) care about making a sound argument. They care about attention.

CPlatypus 15y ago

Hey, crazy idea: why don't more employers give workers a choice? As a quick read of this thread will show, some people like quiet so they can concentrate, while others like the interaction and "energy" of being with others. That's fine. Live and let live. A startup might have to choose one kind of space, but you don't have to get all that large before it becomes possible to have separate areas/floors for different work styles. It seems like such a no-brainer, but I've only ever seen companies do "one size fits all" or segregation by status. Any employer who let me choose whether to work in a private office or a 2-5 person office or a big open area would definitely get some extra points from me.

keithpeter 15y ago
Could be tricky getting the choices sorted out - will you have enough people who want the open plan arrangements? will people just go for private offices on a status basis? In teaching we have various 'learning style' audits. A common one is the VARK profile http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire Could you imagine what a 'preferred productive environment' questionnaire might look like? Would this help make sensible choices and slot people in to existing teams?
- v0cab 15y ago
  I thought that 'learning styles' stuff was discredited.
  - keithpeter 15y ago
    http://www.sportscoachuk.org/sites/default/files/Coffield%20(2004a)%20Should%20we%20be%20using%20learning%20styles.pdf http://www.sportscoachuk.org/sites/default/files/Coffield%20... Frank Coffield and team evaluated the field some time ago. VARK was one of the few that they found had some merit. I find that a visual explanation can help some students over the 'textbook' verbal/arithmetical presentation. See http://www.slideshare.net/keithpeter/reverse-percentages-a-visual-approach-presentation http://www.slideshare.net/keithpeter/reverse-percentages-a-v... (Rendering oddly in Firefox, slideshare used to be so useful...)

metajack 15y ago

The book Peopleware backs up the failure of open plan offices with references and data. For any kind of knowledge work, distraction is kryptonite. I really enjoyed the book, and the info about open plan offices was really interesting. I was previously a fan of the open plan, but now I think if I ever design another office, it would be common areas and offices that close.

kabdib 15y ago
We had this setup at Apple (early Infinite Loop days) and it rocked. The best environment I've ever done engineering in, period. Being able to shut your door for a few hours to crank stuff out is incredibly important. Being able to walk a few feet and collaborate is also incredibly important. They're not at odds. It doesn't take rocket science to design a space that works. It takes something harder: Money, and the ability for non-engineers to listen to people who haven't been drinking the latest silver bullet kool-aid. "People can't concentrate in noisy environments." How hard is that to get?
jtbigwoo 15y ago
Peopleware has some great data about how listening to music can lower distractions but also reduces problem solving ability. The upshot was that test subjects could plow through code while listening to music, but tended to miss optimizations and shortcuts.
- nvarsj 15y ago
  I think Peopleware is a great book, but it makes bold claims with very little experimental data. I personally find this hurts the integrity of the book and would have preferred if the authors were a bit more humble. The music vs silence point, for example, is based on a tiny experiment with a small sample size. The kind of conclusions that are drawn from it in the book are a stretch.

noarchy 15y ago

Most developers who I've known are easily-distracted from being in the "zone", and I include myself in that list. I'm always more productive when working remotely, where I can control my work environment. Second in order of preference is having a private office. It doesn't matter if it is little more than a closet with a door. I've been in nearly every scenario described by folks here on HN, and the most toxic was working in an open office space, and having an exit door behind me, to boot.

akeefer 15y ago

At Guidewire we've worked in an open-plan office for basically the whole life of the company (roughly 10 years), and it's worked really well for us (by whatever metric you like: successful products, financial success, employee retention). Yes, it can be distracting to people, so most people bring headphones, and it's important for people to be considerate and move discussions or phone calls into side offices and conference rooms. At least with the type of software we build, though, communication is absolutely critical, and it's amazing how much a difference of even 10 feet makes in the frequency with which people talk. The optimum layout for us is roughly 1 or 2 clusters of 4-6 desks per "pod" (i.e. a cross-functional team consisting of developers, product managers, and qa that are all working on the same area of the product). At that level, when people are talking about something, what they're talking about is almost always relevant to you, so it's not necessarily a distraction: they're talking about your code and your project, so it's a good thing that you can overhear and participate in the conversation if you wish. If you didn't hear those conversations, you'd be out of the loop. It's often better to be a little more distracted and all on the same page than have a team of 5 engineers plowing ahead in different directions. That's a common conflation when talking about software engineering in general: it's not just how much you get done, it's what you get done. If you get a ton of work done on the wrong thing, you might feel really productive, but you're not actually creating any value. At least with our software, a high level of communication is necessary for most projects to ensure that everyone is on the same page and rowing in the same direction. When that communication breaks down, projects start to fail. Your mileage may vary, of course, depending on the size of your team and the nature of what you're building. (And it goes without saying that a giant warehouse with desks arranged like an 1890's cloth factory is a terrible idea; you have to consider lines of sight, and acoustics, and other environmental things. Not all open plan offices are the same.) But this assumption that open plan offices have been "proven" to be sub-optimal flies in the face of plenty of empirical evidence from companies like mine that have used them very successfully.

enginous 15y ago
I'm glad this is working for you. I agree that different teams will probably respond in different ways to open-plan offices, and that not all such offices are created equally. However, your claim that this has worked "really well" for you "for basically the whole life of the company ... by whatever metric" is not "plenty of empirical evidence." It's anecdotal, and most importantly lacks a comparison to a different arrangement (a control). You have no idea if any of your chosen metrics (however debatable for team effectiveness) would be better for your current team in a different set-up. I also disagree that just because the conversations people hear are about the product, constantly overhearing conversations is therefore productive. If you need everyone in the team to talk about every decision at all times, this is probably either brought on by too few conversations or a lacking framework for productive communication. > If you didn't hear those conversations, you'd be out of the loop. Why aren't you keeping track of decisions and new information formally, e.g. by e-mail? How do you keep employees functional after they get sick or go on a leave? If you have processes for that, then it is not absolutely essential to hear those conversations; employees can read the important stuff at the end of the day.

bh42222 15y ago

Offices, real offices for each developer are best. However, open-plan is still better than cubicles. Cubicles share all the problems of open-plans + you stare at the walls of your cubicle. I'd love to have an office but I prefer open plans over cubicles.

amackera 15y ago
I hate cubicles. Cubicles are soul-crushing abominations.

ChrisNorstrom 15y ago

One day when I have a startup of my own. I'm going to have a mixture of small offices with doors, and larger team rooms, and open space lobbies. Everyone must have wheels on their entire desk. And they'll be able to move around to whatever office suits them for that day, for that problem. That would be my dream because that's what I would like myself. Having options and being able to decide for myself.

oacgnol 15y ago
From what I've read [1], Valve employs the desk-on-wheels configuration to great success. The higher-order function to this is that teams can be fluid and the process for reconfiguring for new projects is as easy as wheeling your desk around. [1] http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/where-the-science-happens-the-penny-arcade-report-goes-for-a-tour-though-th http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/where-t...
- marshray 15y ago
  Looks nice! I must admit when you said "desk-on-wheels" my first thought was that it sounded like something from a Terry Gilliam movie.

dfc 15y ago

Absolutist hyperbolic linkbaity titles must die...

brudgers 15y ago

Open plan offices can solve some problems really well - providing fresh air and daylight to a large number of people efficiently, when executed well. They can provide a creative, collaborative and egalitarian studio like environment, again when executed well. What they struggle with primarily is sound isolation, attenuation, and masking. Secondarily they struggle with visual and olfactory distractions. Designing an open office to look like an Apple store is a mistake. Apple stores are designed to be lively and animated - there's a reason for all those hard surfaces, particularly the glass ceiling. That reason is that they reflect sound. There's also a reason coffee shops provide big overstuffed chairs and carpeted floors.

tonylemesmer 15y ago

Slightly forced connection in the intro to the design of Apple stores. Open plan offices have been around plenty longer than Apple shops. It is good to have a mix of spaces, but designing people's main work space to be a place for constant interruptions does seem to be a fundamental flaw. Breakout rooms and private spaces should be in the mix.

zinssmeister 15y ago

I was never a fan of open-plan office space. As a programmer it's like trying to get work done at a school cafeteria. Which doesn't work without a good pair of head phones. How stupid, if you think about it, we all sit around with head phones, trying to stay in the zone. Yeah I get work done in such environments, but my best work was created in a 2-4 people office or at home, working on problems by myself while connected to a team chat.

amackera 15y ago
To me, it's more like working in a busy computer lab. This works well for me since I was conditioned through university to be productive in a lab environment, to get things done efficiently and to not be distracted by other groups or people in a lab setting. I think there should be both quiet isolation environments and communal lab-type environments in software companies. It's surprising to me how there is so much emphasis in hunkering down in one place and staying put.

tzs 15y ago

I like this kind of layout for a group of people in a department or project: +---------+---------+ | | | | | | +-----+ -+- +-----+ | | | | | | +-----+ +-----+ | | | | | | +-----+ +-----+ | | | | | | +-------| |-------+ The area in the middle is a common area for the group. It can have a table or two and chairs so people can hang out there, or even bring their laptops out and work there, when they are feeling social. The bottom and middle side rooms are private offices. They should have doors that close and be reasonably insulated from sound, so that a worker can work without disturbance when they want to. Ideally, the wall wall facing the central area should have a big window (with drapes or blinds!) so that the person in the office can see if anything interesting is going on in the central area. Each office should have its own light switch capable of turning off all lights in that office. The top two rooms can be bigger offices, or conference rooms, or break rooms for breaks that might be too noisy in the central area. The break in the bottom wall is the connection to the hallway. With this environment, you can easily work in private, no distraction mode (go into your office, close the door, and close the blinds), or in full social mode (take your laptop to the middle area), or in between (work in your office, but leave the door and window open, so you can keep an ear and eye on what's going on in the social area. Note that if you have two groups working on different things, but that have a manager or senior engineer working with both, you can extend this concept and put the two groups side by side, and shift and stretch one of the offices and make it connect to both groups, so that common manager's office is in both groups: +---------+---------+---------+---------+ | | | | | | | | | | +-----+ -+- +-----+-----+ -+- +-----+ | | | | | | | | | | +-----+ +-----+-----+ +-----+ | | | | | | | | +-----+ +-----+-----+ +-----+ | | | | | | | | | | +-------| |-------+-------| |-------+

mechanical_fish 15y ago
My college dorm was like this: Six little one-person rooms along a common hallway with a common room at the end. It was like heaven. And I got a lot done, back then.

isb 15y ago

The ideal setup that I've found is having two people per office that we have at my current workplace: - cuts out distractions: you can only get distracted if you decide to talk with your office-mate. If either of us wants to chat with someone else, we move our discussion to a meeting room. - avoids the isolation and slacking off that a single person per office setup generates. - if office-mates are chosen intelligently, it can result in good collaboration for e.g. pairing a mentor with a junior programmer. A good idea would be to change the pairs every few months.

gruseom 15y ago

Every time this subject comes up on HN, most people agree that open offices suck. As a programmer, I don't understand this. I like collaborating. Software is a team sport. I want a space that's optimized for teamwork. Certainly sometimes I want to go away and think by myself. I want that option, but not as the default. If programmers don't work well together, then by Conway's Law neither will their code. Beyond that, batting ideas around is just more fun than playing the solitary genius - and produces more satisfying results. The kind of open office I like, though, is one in which the people are all working on the same system. I agree that noise and interference from unrelated activity is a disaster. It's very simple: everything should be organized around the team.

arohner 15y ago
Personally, my problem with open plans isn't my team members, it's everyone else in the building who isn't on my team. This is the point that the "team office" plan tries to address. Everyone you want to talk to is in the same room, everyone from other departments, people on manager schedule, etc, is behind a closed door.
DrCatbox 15y ago
Have you ever worked in open space environments? The noise is aweful, the distrubances are maximized, people walking all over the place, it is awkward when somebody comes to me and we dont have a place to talk other than right there - and thus distrub all my nearby collegues. We have "cubes" for that, but cubes are too formal, you need almost an invite, and when you do, its too crowded inside, and then you are away from your workplace where you have all the stuff. Sure, bring your laptop, if you have one, the desk computers we have are not so easy to bring along.
- gruseom 15y ago
  Right, that's dreadful (see my last paragraph). But when most people object to open spaces they do so in terms of private offices. I don't want that either. I want a team area. Doesn't seem so hard.
danellis 15y ago

mortenjorck 15y ago

I think open-plan offices work if you have the right kind of HVAC system. Seriously, hear me out: I work in an open-plan office. I didn't realize it when I first started, but there's actually quite a bit of white noise from the HVAC system. Maybe it's the nature of white noise that it wasn't immediately apparent. One day, about a month after I had started, someone changed the thermostat settings. The constant white noise shut off. In the silence, the sense of space of the office immediately changed. Every footstep on the loft floor was suddenly audible. All the design conversations and dev pairing suddenly seemed much nearer, the words much harder to ignore. It was like the office had shrunk. We tried a few hours this way, and finally set the HVAC system back to how it had been, filling the office once again with a constant, hushing whoosh. The space was back to normal.

recursive 15y ago
My employer actually has white noise generators that intentionally create this effect.
- mkramlich 15y ago
  the polite term for that is the marketing department ;)
albertsun 15y ago
Even better, our open plan office purportedly has active noise canceling systems similar to what are in noise canceling headphones built into the ceiling. This is to dampen noise from elsewhere in the office and keep distractions elsewhere from being too distracting.
- wpietri 15y ago
  If you think they really work, could you say who makes those?
  - albertsun 15y ago
    Unfortunately, I don't know anything about them really.

funkah 15y ago

This preoccupation with "flow" is getting to be a bit much, I think. It's important to be able to focus on your work, but it's also important not to become like "The Princess and the Pea". You need to be able to do good work when conditions are not 100% exactly the way you want.

philwelch 15y ago
Okay, but I still don't see this as a relevant or useful contribution to the discussion about how to lay out an office. I really don't like the attitude of "we're going to deliberately make it harder for you to do your job, and we expect you to man up and deal with it."
Drbble 15y ago
Does this analysis apply to pilots and surgeons as well?

growingconcern 15y ago

There's one reason why open plan will always rule over individual offices or 3-4 person team rooms: you can fit more people into open plans. If square footage matters to your bottom line (ie your office isn't out in the warehouse district) then you can get more employees per sq ft. Bitch all you want, but it ain't gonna change.

wpietri 15y ago

I think it depends somewhat on how you do it. We're very collaborative, so being locked away in rooms would be a pain. We all sit together, but we reduce the pain of open-plan offices by being careful to minimize distraction. E.g., phone calls happen in other rooms. Meetings that don't involve the whole team go in the conference room.

nirvana 15y ago

Before I quit working for other people I used this as a barometer of whether a company was run by idiots or not. IF they had an open plan office, and were apologetic about it, then they might be redeemable. IF they were proud of it, then idiots. Seriously. Sales guys in a big room, they probably benefit from the vibe. Programmers need distractions to be productive? Really? In fact, the last company I worked at had hired way too young, and they had a bunch of kids who thought that being in your office writing code was somehow "Bad" because you were "siloed away". They liked to hang out all together at one big table, and chat away all day long with their laptops out. In the time I was there, I don't think they ever realized they were getting nothing done. (I was curious as to whether they were onto something or not, so I tracked the number of stories and features they committed vs. me and my officemate who at 26 was the "old man" of the bunch, though still much younger than me he was old enough to know what flow was.) Result: the two of us were about 4 times more productive than the 5 of them. One of those five, though, was the "director of engineering" (20 years old) and was constantly chastising us for spending too much time in our offices. When it became clear that this was going to affect my evaluation, I chose to exit that company. (They folded about a year later, never having accomplished the short term goal they were working on while I was there.) But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe some people are more productive in groups of 2-3. That's fine. Set up offices for them to work that way. Just let me have some damn peace and quiet so I can get work done! (and I never seem to have a problem hooking up with other engineers to talk about architecture or what have you to keep us coordinated, though often this is via email or chat... which is much less interrupting than a tap on the shoulder.) ----------- On further thought-- maybe designers and people whose job is to sling HTML or javascript don't need to have "Flow". Maybe the jobs for these people are light enough that there is no context switching cost or the cost is low. That's not the case for my work or my career. There's often a very large amount of stuff I need to track in my head... because I'm generally solving hard problems on the back end, rather than making UIs or web pages.

randomdata 15y ago
> Programmers need distractions to be productive? Really? Sometimes. I work from home, so I'm mostly distraction free, but sometimes I need distractions to get the motivation flowing again. I think the perfect office would have the opportunity to work under many different environments, depending on your mood. Moderation is, like always, the key.

jjcm 15y ago

I'm at Microsoft right now. Microsoft has a policy that everyone gets their own office, if they want it. They "if they want it" part there is key - myself and everyone else on my team was given the choice to have either an open work environment or an office environment. Most of my team and I chose to pursue the open route (a lot of our team is composed of designers, not programmers). I've enjoyed it quite a bit for meetings and other collaborative efforts. When I need to get a lot of my own work done though, I escape somewhere else or do it from home. The reverse is true as well - I know some people who chose to have offices who will work a couple days a week out in the open, simply to collaborate with others more closely. Each has its benefits. Open-plan offices shouldn't die, but people need to realize that they come with ups and downs.

teek 15y ago

I wouldn't mind a low-height cubicle farm. That is nobody can see each other if everyone is sitting down, if you stand up you can see people without getting on your toes. I would also arrange the cubicles such that your back is never to the entrance. So you know when someone is walking into your space.

jw_ 15y ago
Such things exist and are horrible to work in. I worked in a very large dev office that was essentially a gigantic low-height cube farm and sound carried for-frigging-EVER - conversations 20m away may as well have been in your lap. Plus, if you happen to be taller sitting down than the wall height (as I was), then you also get the nice distraction of seeing developers and other worker bees shuffling around the place. If you are in such a space, then yes, snagging a desk that does not expose your back to the entrance is key to maintaining some level of sanity. A better solution long-term is to find a less brain-damaged environment to work in.

caublestone 15y ago

I've always like Pixars office. Certain areas for people that need to work in groups and offices in upstairs hall ways for people to work in private offices. Sort of the best of both worlds. http://www.home-designing.com/2011/06/pixars-office-interiors-2 http://www.home-designing.com/2011/06/pixars-office-interior...

URSpider94 15y ago

What I would really like to see is a company where employees get to choose from a variety of seating arrangements to pick one that meets their needs. I know some people who absolutely thrive on the open-plan office; these are probably the same people who did all of their homework with the TV on. I also know people who have to wear aircraft-grade earmuffs to avoid being disturbed/distracted by the sound of people walking by their office door.

watmough 15y ago

One layout that works well is small / tiny offices around an external wall, with conference rooms, bathrooms, corridors etc in the middle. My current job is at quite old building (70's) with a floor laid out like this, and it's just fantastic. I have enough space for some computers, a room I can work in in peace and quiet, and just enough space for small meetings and co-working when needed. Any negative effects of being in a private office can be canceled by having office communicator, Yahoo! chat etc. Typical 70's office buildings seem to often be laid out like this.

organico 15y ago

I couldn't agree more. I need a quiet place alone to program, and I've just recently moved into a coworking space. Total loss of productivity. I'm going to start working from home again, at least 2-3 days a week...

wolframarnold 15y ago

The most effective setups I've seen and experienced are those that keep noise and distractions low, communication easy and incentives to drop into and stay in the zone maximized. Incidentally these factors are not limited to just workspace layout. I think overly focusing on work space at the expense of other crucial factors is another case of "sub-optimization" and thereby not "lean". Some of these factors are: * Gathering the team in one place and ideally at the same time. Standup meetings do this, as well as catered breakfasts and lunches. * Open spaces that provide ready access to other folks, engineers, designers, product owners. It's amazing how high the hurdle of having to get up and open a door can be and how amazing the cost of inferior decisions made by coders is when asking someone requires overcoming hurdles. Remember that the desired behavior must also be the easiest behavior. * No employee-specific workstations. The easier it is to move around and the more common the computer setup the better collaboration can ensue. * Subdued noise levels. This can be accomplished through white noise generators, Dj Tiesto, sound swallowing wall fabrics and carpets, etc. * Systems that capture project data in structured ways, minimizing the need and role of email. * Separate gathering spaces for socializing, ping pong, lunches, meetings, phone calls to not disturb the main work area. * A prevailing practice of pair programming and TDD. Interestingly, some of the most successful development shops like Pivotal Labs and Hashrocket do exactly that.

jebberjeb 15y ago

I see someone read "Quiet". It all depends on the people on the team. Some people work great in the same room. Some people don't. You've got to either pick your people based on office configuration, or pick your office configuration based on your people -- I'll take the latter.