7 ms·

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 offic

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.
scottshea 15y ago
"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." So you had the inertia effect AND a less productive work environment. I wonder if there is anything out there about the productivity lost during a move.
- JanezStupar 15y ago
  If four grownup people on a mission cannot agree to terms that would be most favorable for the common goal. Then all hope is lost anyway.
- hkarthik 15y ago
  The main problem was the noise level went up as all the teams ended up in the same room, along with the IT ops guys. It went from 3 guys that worked well in a team room to 25 people in one open office plan. Our own team's cohesiveness deteriorated as we all went into headphone mode and communication was slower among ourselves.
mindcrime 15y ago
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. I cannot even begin to imagine how anybody could find that desirable. 3-5 people in one room? So you still get distractions, lack of privacy, and the room will probably be too damn hot more often than not (some companies get this part right, most don't in my experience)... and unless you entire team is those 3-5 people, you still don't get the purported advantage of maximum ability to communicate and collaborate without having to get up and walk somewhere. This actually sounds like the worst of all worlds to me. Then again, I'm strongly biased towards the belief that programmers should have private offices with doors that close.
- jtbigwoo 15y ago
  A team room can be a great solution if it's done thoughtfully. The big drawback to private offices is that it can inhibit the cross-polination of projects that results in revolutionary ideas. A few rules about group offices that seem to help: -The team decides the furniture layout. -The team members don't have to be on the same project, but they should perform similar functions. Don't put the project managers in the same room as the developers! -There should be ample meeting space separate from the group office space. -The team needs someone who is senior enough to lead the group if they need rules on distractions and interruptions. For example, in one group office we sent questions to each other over IM even though we were literally elbow-to-elbow. In another group office, we talked almost constantly because we each brought specialized, non-intersecting knowledge to the project. -The team doesn't last forever. When projects or people start to turn over, it's a good idea to re-form the groups. (edit: list format looked terrible)
  - Drbble 15y ago
    I love the productivity boost of sitting with my PM: "hey, feature x.y.z is actually a pain, now that I look at it closely. Can I email scrap it?" "scrapped. " Way better than spending a couple of days working on it before a weekly checkup meeting.
peacemaker 15y ago
I have experienced all the same situations as you and I strongly disagree with the 3-5 person team room idea. I'm currently in a 3 person room right now and it's the worst of all I've had! You're constantly distracted by the other 2 guys and communication between the rest of the team is made difficult. Plus you can rarely shut the door, turn lights on/off, set the air conditioning how you like without upsetting one of the others in your office. I'd take an open plan office with sales people and managers screaming on the phone any day over my current situation! Of course, the best choice would be my own office... we can all dream I guess.
j_baker 15y ago
I would rather have an open plan than a cube farm. Cubical walls give the illusion of privacy. They let people think they can talk as loudly as they want to without distracting anyone. Plus, they inhibit meaningful collaboration by making it more difficult to talk to teammates. At least with the open plan, you get what you see.
- devs1010 15y ago
  yeah I definitely agree. I used to work in a cube farm, the office I work in now is more open, has sort of half-cubicles but is laid out differently than a cube farm. With the cube farm people would still talk and you'd hear their private conversations but never see them, at least with the more open plan if you glare over at someone who is being rudely loud they get the idea, with the cube farm they just yammer away all day in their little isolated pods, I noticed some of the dev's there seemed to screw around a lot more and have a lot more non-work related conversations (one in particular) than they do in the more open environment.
vessenes 15y ago
I agree about team rooms, and IBM agrees with you too: In the 1970s, IBM's research into this suggested a hybrid model for developer productivity -- it's one I think still works well today. The idea behind the model is that small product or functional teams tend to need to talk at the same time, and therefore also tend to need 'flow' time at the same time. Breaking flow for the group is evil, hence separate space. Recongregating for a short chat between team members is evil, hence the coworking. 400 square feet is more than enough space for a brainstorming area as well as desks. I personally hate to see a common pattern of developers with headphones on -- it means the tech teams are stressed in some way, and don't have enough flow time or personal space.
- heretohelp 15y ago
  >I personally hate to see a common pattern of developers with headphones on What? I can't work without them, regardless of my environment. I could be alone in a woods, coding, and I'd still need headphones/earbuds and music going to get my code on. That's been true for over a decade and I've even tried to break the habit.
  - chronomex 15y ago
    It's funny, even in an empty room the headphones help signal that I'm focusing. Headphones-off-speakers-on is Youtube-and-farting-around-online time, headphones-on is coding time.
nowarninglabel 15y ago
Well, I'll counter-point that I was in a 3-5 person team room for a few years and it was terrible. I've been in an open office for the last 1.5 years and it's been amazing and I've never been more productive. In the team room, no matter what I did, people felt they had the right to interrupt me. In the open office, I put on my headphones and am free of distractions, and people know that if you have headphones on you don't want to be disturbed. So each to their own I think.

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.

scottshea 15y ago

"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." So you had the inertia effect AND a less productive work environment. I wonder if there is anything out there about the productivity lost during a move.

JanezStupar 15y ago
If four grownup people on a mission cannot agree to terms that would be most favorable for the common goal. Then all hope is lost anyway.
hkarthik 15y ago
The main problem was the noise level went up as all the teams ended up in the same room, along with the IT ops guys. It went from 3 guys that worked well in a team room to 25 people in one open office plan. Our own team's cohesiveness deteriorated as we all went into headphone mode and communication was slower among ourselves.

mindcrime 15y ago

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. I cannot even begin to imagine how anybody could find that desirable. 3-5 people in one room? So you still get distractions, lack of privacy, and the room will probably be too damn hot more often than not (some companies get this part right, most don't in my experience)... and unless you entire team is those 3-5 people, you still don't get the purported advantage of maximum ability to communicate and collaborate without having to get up and walk somewhere. This actually sounds like the worst of all worlds to me. Then again, I'm strongly biased towards the belief that programmers should have private offices with doors that close.

jtbigwoo 15y ago
A team room can be a great solution if it's done thoughtfully. The big drawback to private offices is that it can inhibit the cross-polination of projects that results in revolutionary ideas. A few rules about group offices that seem to help: -The team decides the furniture layout. -The team members don't have to be on the same project, but they should perform similar functions. Don't put the project managers in the same room as the developers! -There should be ample meeting space separate from the group office space. -The team needs someone who is senior enough to lead the group if they need rules on distractions and interruptions. For example, in one group office we sent questions to each other over IM even though we were literally elbow-to-elbow. In another group office, we talked almost constantly because we each brought specialized, non-intersecting knowledge to the project. -The team doesn't last forever. When projects or people start to turn over, it's a good idea to re-form the groups. (edit: list format looked terrible)
- Drbble 15y ago
  I love the productivity boost of sitting with my PM: "hey, feature x.y.z is actually a pain, now that I look at it closely. Can I email scrap it?" "scrapped. " Way better than spending a couple of days working on it before a weekly checkup meeting.

peacemaker 15y ago

I have experienced all the same situations as you and I strongly disagree with the 3-5 person team room idea. I'm currently in a 3 person room right now and it's the worst of all I've had! You're constantly distracted by the other 2 guys and communication between the rest of the team is made difficult. Plus you can rarely shut the door, turn lights on/off, set the air conditioning how you like without upsetting one of the others in your office. I'd take an open plan office with sales people and managers screaming on the phone any day over my current situation! Of course, the best choice would be my own office... we can all dream I guess.

j_baker 15y ago

I would rather have an open plan than a cube farm. Cubical walls give the illusion of privacy. They let people think they can talk as loudly as they want to without distracting anyone. Plus, they inhibit meaningful collaboration by making it more difficult to talk to teammates. At least with the open plan, you get what you see.

devs1010 15y ago
yeah I definitely agree. I used to work in a cube farm, the office I work in now is more open, has sort of half-cubicles but is laid out differently than a cube farm. With the cube farm people would still talk and you'd hear their private conversations but never see them, at least with the more open plan if you glare over at someone who is being rudely loud they get the idea, with the cube farm they just yammer away all day in their little isolated pods, I noticed some of the dev's there seemed to screw around a lot more and have a lot more non-work related conversations (one in particular) than they do in the more open environment.

vessenes 15y ago

I agree about team rooms, and IBM agrees with you too: In the 1970s, IBM's research into this suggested a hybrid model for developer productivity -- it's one I think still works well today. The idea behind the model is that small product or functional teams tend to need to talk at the same time, and therefore also tend to need 'flow' time at the same time. Breaking flow for the group is evil, hence separate space. Recongregating for a short chat between team members is evil, hence the coworking. 400 square feet is more than enough space for a brainstorming area as well as desks. I personally hate to see a common pattern of developers with headphones on -- it means the tech teams are stressed in some way, and don't have enough flow time or personal space.

heretohelp 15y ago
>I personally hate to see a common pattern of developers with headphones on What? I can't work without them, regardless of my environment. I could be alone in a woods, coding, and I'd still need headphones/earbuds and music going to get my code on. That's been true for over a decade and I've even tried to break the habit.
- chronomex 15y ago
  It's funny, even in an empty room the headphones help signal that I'm focusing. Headphones-off-speakers-on is Youtube-and-farting-around-online time, headphones-on is coding time.

nowarninglabel 15y ago

Well, I'll counter-point that I was in a 3-5 person team room for a few years and it was terrible. I've been in an open office for the last 1.5 years and it's been amazing and I've never been more productive. In the team room, no matter what I did, people felt they had the right to interrupt me. In the open office, I put on my headphones and am free of distractions, and people know that if you have headphones on you don't want to be disturbed. So each to their own I think.