8 ms·

I wonder how much money is wasted via lost productivity due to open office plans. On a per-year per-programmer basis private offices are not very expensive. ht

I wonder how much money is wasted via lost productivity due to open office plans. On a per-year per-programmer basis private offices are not very expensive. http://blog.fogcreek.com/the-price-of-dev-happiness-part-two/ http://blog.fogcreek.com/the-price-of-dev-happiness-part-two... http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/07/30.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/07/30.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fieldguidetodevelopers.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fieldguidetodeveloper...

trggrer 14y ago
Like life, balance is everything. If you want total privacy, better work from home but if you need physical presence/collaboration, regular cubicles in rooms/areas of 8-10 cubicles + a boardroom looks like a win-win to me. I guess it depends on the kind of programming you're doing and the teams composition.
- MattRogish 14y ago
  It has nothing to do with "privacy" and everything to do with un-necessary distraction. Yes, face-to-face, voice-based collaboration can be a good thing, but very rarely do you need it 100% of the time. Need someone to look at your code? Ask them to come over and look at it. Need to chat with someone to discuss the design of some code? You can still do that. Why folks somehow tolerate "everyone gets bothered by any side conversation" is beyond me, especially when you can have perfectly fine collaboration without open-plan offices. It's incomprehensible why companies with "communication problems" think that will be solved by throwing everyone into one room. I bet good money the problem isn't that Jane isn't overhearing Joe and Bob's conversation. It's some deeper disfunction that is being exposed as "communication problems".
majormajor 14y ago
I've been a developer with a private office and I've also been on a small (< 10 person) team in an open office plan. Give me the open office any day. If there's a side conversation not of interest to me, I tune it out. But frequently there are ones that are of interest to me that I'm able to either contribute to or learn something from. It's great for group troubleshooting of sudden issues, too.
- mnicole 14y ago
  > I tune it out Try as we might, some of us just can't do this.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    Get a pair of good headphones.
    - MJR 14y ago
      Some people prefer a quiet environment versus listening to something, even if that's white noise. So, while getting a good pair of headphones is great for those who like having some auditory stimulation while they work, it just doesn't compare to having a quiet office if that's how you work best.
      - eps 14y ago
        There is basically no such thing as "quiet environment", unless it's a library. There will be some noise from the neighbors, from the street or whatever. I find that I can tune out easily enough if the noise is beyond my control. If, on the other hand, it's someone whom I can ask to keep it down (but would rather not to), then noise cancelling headphones is the best option there is.
        MJR 14y ago
        Ok, you're getting into semantics now. I think most people reading that would understand what I mean when I say a quiet environment, especially vs a library where the only sounds tend to be the information desk, the hum of computer fans, photocopiers and the heating/cooling system. The quiet environment I was describing can be found in an office where the majority of people are heads-down working and not on the phone. This is harder to find when you're in an office that's setup as a cube-farm or an open layout. But this can be easily found at the beginning or end of the day and especially on work days that bookend holidays or three day weekends - days that lots of people typically take vacation. Those are the times when I find I get my best work done because it is the closest to quiet and distraction-free that one can find, other than working remotely where you can control the environment.
rayiner 14y ago
I understand private offices don't always work into the budget, but I'm always surprised that the companies that have giant suburban office parks still don't give their developers private offices.
prophetjohn 14y ago
Private offices sounds terrible to me. I wonder the extent to which silos of knowledge are created by confining every developer into their own office and discouraging outside communication. I would suffocate in that environment. I vastly prefer open office where developers work in frequently rotated pairs, with separate pairs close enough to talk as necessary. It's a little bit harder this way, but I've found that it leads to higher quality software, higher diversity of knowledge and it's just made me a better programmer (and a better Vim user and a better Unix command line user, etc). I hope I don't ever have to take another job where I'm not forced to both teach and learn from all of my coworkers directly.

trggrer 14y ago

Like life, balance is everything. If you want total privacy, better work from home but if you need physical presence/collaboration, regular cubicles in rooms/areas of 8-10 cubicles + a boardroom looks like a win-win to me. I guess it depends on the kind of programming you're doing and the teams composition.

MattRogish 14y ago
It has nothing to do with "privacy" and everything to do with un-necessary distraction. Yes, face-to-face, voice-based collaboration can be a good thing, but very rarely do you need it 100% of the time. Need someone to look at your code? Ask them to come over and look at it. Need to chat with someone to discuss the design of some code? You can still do that. Why folks somehow tolerate "everyone gets bothered by any side conversation" is beyond me, especially when you can have perfectly fine collaboration without open-plan offices. It's incomprehensible why companies with "communication problems" think that will be solved by throwing everyone into one room. I bet good money the problem isn't that Jane isn't overhearing Joe and Bob's conversation. It's some deeper disfunction that is being exposed as "communication problems".

majormajor 14y ago

I've been a developer with a private office and I've also been on a small (< 10 person) team in an open office plan. Give me the open office any day. If there's a side conversation not of interest to me, I tune it out. But frequently there are ones that are of interest to me that I'm able to either contribute to or learn something from. It's great for group troubleshooting of sudden issues, too.

mnicole 14y ago
> I tune it out Try as we might, some of us just can't do this.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  Get a pair of good headphones.
  - MJR 14y ago
    Some people prefer a quiet environment versus listening to something, even if that's white noise. So, while getting a good pair of headphones is great for those who like having some auditory stimulation while they work, it just doesn't compare to having a quiet office if that's how you work best.
    - eps 14y ago
      There is basically no such thing as "quiet environment", unless it's a library. There will be some noise from the neighbors, from the street or whatever. I find that I can tune out easily enough if the noise is beyond my control. If, on the other hand, it's someone whom I can ask to keep it down (but would rather not to), then noise cancelling headphones is the best option there is.
      - MJR 14y ago
        Ok, you're getting into semantics now. I think most people reading that would understand what I mean when I say a quiet environment, especially vs a library where the only sounds tend to be the information desk, the hum of computer fans, photocopiers and the heating/cooling system. The quiet environment I was describing can be found in an office where the majority of people are heads-down working and not on the phone. This is harder to find when you're in an office that's setup as a cube-farm or an open layout. But this can be easily found at the beginning or end of the day and especially on work days that bookend holidays or three day weekends - days that lots of people typically take vacation. Those are the times when I find I get my best work done because it is the closest to quiet and distraction-free that one can find, other than working remotely where you can control the environment.

rayiner 14y ago

I understand private offices don't always work into the budget, but I'm always surprised that the companies that have giant suburban office parks still don't give their developers private offices.

prophetjohn 14y ago

Private offices sounds terrible to me. I wonder the extent to which silos of knowledge are created by confining every developer into their own office and discouraging outside communication. I would suffocate in that environment. I vastly prefer open office where developers work in frequently rotated pairs, with separate pairs close enough to talk as necessary. It's a little bit harder this way, but I've found that it leads to higher quality software, higher diversity of knowledge and it's just made me a better programmer (and a better Vim user and a better Unix command line user, etc). I hope I don't ever have to take another job where I'm not forced to both teach and learn from all of my coworkers directly.