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It's all about balance. Open offices work for certain occupations but not for others. When it comes to software development I think you need a combination of op

It's all about balance. Open offices work for certain occupations but not for others. When it comes to software development I think you need a combination of open office and cube farm. The best balance I've found is open office with all communication happening in a place it can be persisted (Campfire, HipChat, etc.) for others to see and benefit from. Occasionally the entire team can break into talking in the open office area but this should only be done if the entire team is participating. If the entire team isn't participating then communication should be handled in a chat (preferably) or in a conference room. If you're trying to build software in an open office where people are constantly talking then I'm sorry, good work will not get done. Decisions to change your office layout should be in the interest of boosting communication, team cohesion and productivity. Cubicles are too restrictive, completely open is too distracting.

ConceptJunkie 13y ago
As far as I'm concerned, a cube farm is an open office. Both provide the same amount of quiet: none. I think open offices are a terrible idea with huge productivity hits that are not made up in any way by the small advantages they provide, but they aren't going away any time soon. This was a good article, but again, it won't have any effect. The bottom line means we all have to suffer in noisy, distracting environments whether it's helpful or harmful.
mindcrime 13y ago
When it comes to software development I think you need a combination of open office and cube farm. And I think that developers should be in private offices, with doors. However, I will add that I think that a good environment also features plenty of open spaces, conference rooms, breakout areas, etc., where group can coalesce on an ad-hoc / temporary basis, on those occasions when people benefit from the high-bandwidth, face-to-face communication.
- EternalLight 13y ago
  Personally I want to be in an open office with the team I'm currently working with, an no one else. While IM works, it's a lot less band with in IM and you miss out on a number more spontaneous design discussions. A good team will not interrupt you with questions they could just as easily goggled. On the other hand, I hate talk from other teams or projects. The mostly unrelated and in worst case interesting (thus 10 times as effective in distracting me.). So the current open office plan with 6-7 teams in an open area is occasionally really annoying.

ConceptJunkie 13y ago

As far as I'm concerned, a cube farm is an open office. Both provide the same amount of quiet: none. I think open offices are a terrible idea with huge productivity hits that are not made up in any way by the small advantages they provide, but they aren't going away any time soon. This was a good article, but again, it won't have any effect. The bottom line means we all have to suffer in noisy, distracting environments whether it's helpful or harmful.

mindcrime 13y ago

When it comes to software development I think you need a combination of open office and cube farm. And I think that developers should be in private offices, with doors. However, I will add that I think that a good environment also features plenty of open spaces, conference rooms, breakout areas, etc., where group can coalesce on an ad-hoc / temporary basis, on those occasions when people benefit from the high-bandwidth, face-to-face communication.

EternalLight 13y ago
Personally I want to be in an open office with the team I'm currently working with, an no one else. While IM works, it's a lot less band with in IM and you miss out on a number more spontaneous design discussions. A good team will not interrupt you with questions they could just as easily goggled. On the other hand, I hate talk from other teams or projects. The mostly unrelated and in worst case interesting (thus 10 times as effective in distracting me.). So the current open office plan with 6-7 teams in an open area is occasionally really annoying.