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I think you're misunderstanding what people mean when they're talking about 'war room' environments. It's just about having everybody related to a project worki

I think you're misunderstanding what people mean when they're talking about 'war room' environments. It's just about having everybody related to a project working together in the same room. The sort of thing agile folk talk about as 'team rooms' and what the CSCW folk call 'radical colocation'. This isn't about emergency situations. It isn't about burning resources. It's about normal sustainable work. I'd encourage you to dig into some of the references and see what you think. If you're building a product, that's a different kind of job and needs a different environment. The evidence from pretty much all the research that has been done would seem to differ. My personal experience has also been that the best products are built by teams working that way - so I have some anecdotes too ;-)

rwallace 14y ago
No, I understand perfectly well what you mean, and I'm disagreeing. I'm pointing out that a war room environment works well for an emergency situation where you don't care about burning resources, and very badly for normal sustainable work. Pretty much all the evidence to date says development work is most productively done when each developer has a private room (whether office or at home) with a door he can close, and when face-to-face interaction is something that can be done as appropriate instead of being forced all the time. See 'Joel on Software' for more extensive discussion, references etc.
- adrianhoward 14y ago
  Pretty much all the evidence to date says development work is most productively done when each developer has a private room Can you please point me to the evidence that this set up beats team rooms? I would, quite seriously, love to see it. I've seen Joel talking about it. I've seen lots of anecdotes. I've seen evidence that it works better than, for example, cubicle farms and other non-team-room types of work environment. But I've not seen anything past anecdote that it beats team rooms.
  - rwallace 14y ago
    That is a fair point. The statistical data I've come across compares private offices with cubicle farms, and I was more or less automatically combining that with the observation that I personally would have a better chance of getting programming work done even in a cubicle farm than in a war room, but I don't remember offhand having seen actual studies comparing private offices with war rooms.
    - adrianhoward 14y ago
      Darn. Some counter examples would have been interesting. I was more or less automatically combining that with the observation that I personally would have a better chance of getting programming work done even in a cubicle farm than in a war room Out of curiosity - have you ever spent any significant time (more than a couple of works) working in one? I ask because that was exactly what I thought I would be like. Instead I found it to be very productive and enjoyable. It also seems to be a common reaction from developers who've not tried it. It's mentioned in one of the papers: "Although the teammates were not looking forward to working in close quarters, over time they realized the benefits of having people at hand, both for coordination, problem solving and learning." - http://possibility.com/Misc/p339-teasley.pdf http://possibility.com/Misc/p339-teasley.pdf
      - rwallace 14y ago
        I'll admit I haven't. Are you saying you found it sucked for the first couple of weeks but after that you adapted to it? Of course this kind of thing is also complicated by reactions varying greatly with where you are on the introversion-extroversion axis; programmers are on average more introverted than the general population, but still vary all over the scale.
        adrianhoward 14y ago
        I'll admit I haven't. Are you saying you found it sucked for the first couple of weeks but after that you adapted to it? Kind of... a period of adjustment certainly. Switching from 'me metrics' to 'team metrics' for success took a little time to internally grok. Of course this kind of thing is also complicated by reactions varying greatly with where you are on the introversion-extroversion axis; programmers are on average more introverted than the general population, but still vary all over the scale. If you're the sort of person who takes MBTIs seriously (I'm not ;-) I'm INFJ - and pretty far into the "I" as I recall.

rwallace 14y ago

No, I understand perfectly well what you mean, and I'm disagreeing. I'm pointing out that a war room environment works well for an emergency situation where you don't care about burning resources, and very badly for normal sustainable work. Pretty much all the evidence to date says development work is most productively done when each developer has a private room (whether office or at home) with a door he can close, and when face-to-face interaction is something that can be done as appropriate instead of being forced all the time. See 'Joel on Software' for more extensive discussion, references etc.

adrianhoward 14y ago
Pretty much all the evidence to date says development work is most productively done when each developer has a private room Can you please point me to the evidence that this set up beats team rooms? I would, quite seriously, love to see it. I've seen Joel talking about it. I've seen lots of anecdotes. I've seen evidence that it works better than, for example, cubicle farms and other non-team-room types of work environment. But I've not seen anything past anecdote that it beats team rooms.
- rwallace 14y ago
  That is a fair point. The statistical data I've come across compares private offices with cubicle farms, and I was more or less automatically combining that with the observation that I personally would have a better chance of getting programming work done even in a cubicle farm than in a war room, but I don't remember offhand having seen actual studies comparing private offices with war rooms.
  - adrianhoward 14y ago
    Darn. Some counter examples would have been interesting. I was more or less automatically combining that with the observation that I personally would have a better chance of getting programming work done even in a cubicle farm than in a war room Out of curiosity - have you ever spent any significant time (more than a couple of works) working in one? I ask because that was exactly what I thought I would be like. Instead I found it to be very productive and enjoyable. It also seems to be a common reaction from developers who've not tried it. It's mentioned in one of the papers: "Although the teammates were not looking forward to working in close quarters, over time they realized the benefits of having people at hand, both for coordination, problem solving and learning." - http://possibility.com/Misc/p339-teasley.pdf http://possibility.com/Misc/p339-teasley.pdf
    - rwallace 14y ago
      I'll admit I haven't. Are you saying you found it sucked for the first couple of weeks but after that you adapted to it? Of course this kind of thing is also complicated by reactions varying greatly with where you are on the introversion-extroversion axis; programmers are on average more introverted than the general population, but still vary all over the scale.
      - adrianhoward 14y ago
        I'll admit I haven't. Are you saying you found it sucked for the first couple of weeks but after that you adapted to it? Kind of... a period of adjustment certainly. Switching from 'me metrics' to 'team metrics' for success took a little time to internally grok. Of course this kind of thing is also complicated by reactions varying greatly with where you are on the introversion-extroversion axis; programmers are on average more introverted than the general population, but still vary all over the scale. If you're the sort of person who takes MBTIs seriously (I'm not ;-) I'm INFJ - and pretty far into the "I" as I recall.