3-4 person caves are awful. They encourage cliquish behavior which translates into uncooperative competition. Completely open plans might be noisy, but 3-4 is

3-4 person caves are awful. They encourage cliquish behavior which translates into uncooperative competition. Completely open plans might be noisy, but 3-4 is too small a unit. You can always call the big bullpen the quiet room and the smaller rooms the conversation rooms. I've worked at several start ups where that was in place and it worked wonderfully. To blame the plan is to blame the tool - it was the hammers fault! Also consider that sometimes the biggest producer is sometimes the most introverted and least connected in terms of personnel graph. Putting up walls everywhere dramatically increases that persons social barrier to communication which translates directly into business drag. Open plans ease that persons burden.