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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

• 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.