9 ms·

The best environment I've ever worked in was a combination open office, private space hybrid. You had your desk, whether you wanted a sitting desk or standing d

by pvnick 13y ago

The best environment I've ever worked in was a combination open office, private space hybrid. You had your desk, whether you wanted a sitting desk or standing desk, you could choose from either, and you were by default in the open office area. However, surrounding this large room were a dozen or so closed offices where you could pop in and have a meeting or do some coding in private. However, one of the organize-all-the-things guys on the internal operations team once caught me in a coding marathon in one of those offices and sent an email to the entire company "reminding" everyone that those offices were for God-knows-what-he-thought-they-were-for, not for work. So I returned to my ergonomic island and toiled away, surrounded by the noise of a hundred private conversations. I've always thought since then that if that had panned out, that you could choose at any moment if you wanted to be in the open room or in a private room in the perimeter, that would have been the ideal layout.

acgourley 13y ago
Thanks for sharing, I've always thought that seemed like the right compromise. If I was looking to build a similar space, would you have any advice or observations?
- pvnick 13y ago
  Unfortunately, I've only ever been a spectator in the design of offices, I've never played much of an active role in their organization. The best advice I can offer is to have the utmost respect for your developers, since they are your prized assets. Give them good equipment, choices, and solicit them for feedback on what they want.
  - amirmc 13y ago
    > "The best advice I can offer is to have the utmost respect for your developers, since they are your prized assets." Not just devs. Employers should have utmost respect for all their employees.
    - acdha 13y ago
      I wish I could upvote this more than once. It's too common for developers to assume they're more valuable rather than benefiting from a currently tighter job market.
      - pvnick 13y ago
        In economics terms, that's the same thing. Tighter job market, more competition for dev talent, devs have more choices, the good ones choose the environment that values them the most.
        acdha 13y ago
        > In economics terms, that's the same thing. Only in the most simplistic understanding – anyone serious will factor in limited information and human irrationality rather than assuming that observed market behaviour represents Econ 101 game-theoretical optimal decisions. If you work at a large company, you might be well paid because you're working on the CEO's pet iOS project and there's a developer shortage. The market is working to give you higher pay but there's no relation to any sort of actual value. Most places don't even make a serious effort to quantify value or cost in a remotely scientific manner.
      - DougWebb 13y ago
        There's some of that, to be sure, but different employees are different. Everyone spends some amount of time doing collaborative work, and some amount of time doing individual work that requires concentration and focus. Different jobs require a different mix of these two kinds of work. Developers tend to spend most of their time on the individual concentration end of the spectrum, which is why you see comments like the parent's. But it applies just as much to anyone who requires an equivalent amount of individual focused work time each day. The logical outcome of this is that your office layout should be different for employee groups doing different types of work, but since having an office is seen as a perk of upper management, giving offices to some groups and open plan areas to other groups is seen as favoritism and elitism rather than simply providing the best environment for everyone's job, and I think that's a big reason why it doesn't often happen.
  - wil421 13y ago
    Employees are your most prized asset I wouldn't limit it to just devs.
- fishtoaster 13y ago
  I've been in such an office, and I loved it. Some people, like me, spent most of their time in the main open space. Others camped out all day in a private office. Most moved between the two. From a design perspective: - Glass walls are nice. This office was a group space surrounded by smaller rooms (which had the windows). The offices were glass on the interior wall (facing the group space), which allowed light in, but opaque on the walls between offices, allowing for privacy. - Variety was important. Iirc, we had like 4-6 offices that would fit 2 people at desks, 3 that would fit 4 or 5 people around a table, and 1 that fit about 12 around a small conference table. This was for a 25-person company, and seemed to provide about the right amount of space. - We ended up soundproofing a few rooms because people would use them for calls or loud music playing and it'd disturb the neighboring offices.
fogonthedowns 13y ago
Same here. If you needed privacy you have it. If you wish to have a collaborative work space you have it. My mood changes, some days I can deal with others other days I just want to put my head down and program alone. This was a great option to have.
res0nat0r 13y ago
The large pharma I used to work for is still in the process of spending millions of dollars redoing all of their floors to open work space areas. Around the outside of the floors are "focus booths" which just have a small desk/phone/monitor setup for someone to work in for a few hours. These booths are always full and occupied by folks for the entire day, since most people don't like the loud open area workspace and sit in these small offices so they can have phone calls and concentrate.
- owenmarshall 13y ago
  Every time I've been involved in an open floor plan office I look at the conference rooms. They end up occupied by the most senior person that doesn't have an office. At one company where I worked management got offices, so it was senior developers staking out the conference rooms... at another, no one had an office, so the owner got the nicest conference room and some of the leads fought over the lesser ones.
  - fein 13y ago
    Open office plan here. We have a little room tucked down a hallway that maybe 5-7 people know about, and no one uses. I've been in here for 3 weeks, and it's wonderful.
    - haliburton 13y ago
      We used to have one of those. It was called the "Tree House" because one guy filled it with plants. It was great. Then we moved offices - open floor plan - and we no longer have the equivalent. :(
- Amadou 13y ago
  most people don't like the loud open area workspace and sit in these small offices so they can have phone calls and concentrate. FWIW, good acoustical engineering can make a significant difference in how loud an open-space "feels." Putting sound-absorbing materials on all architectural features and hanging sound-diffusing baffles from the ceiling can change a loud room into a significantly quieter and less distracting room. It isn't a panacea, but it isn't hard to do. You will need someone experienced in room acoustics to design it for you. I'd still prefer small offices over an open space, but if management is stuck on having an open-space then getting good sound control in there will make the best of a bad situation. You can hear the reverse in a lot of trendy restaurants nowadays where, for some reason that I can't comprehend, it is fashionable to deliberately make the dining area as loud as possible. http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/07/adam-platt-on-loud-restaurants.html http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/07/adam-platt-on-loud-restaur...
strlen 13y ago
This was pretty similar to (at least the buildings I worked in 2012-2013) Facebook Menlo Park: open space, but many of small side offices for coding/ad-hoc meetings/views. Personally, however, I'd prefer the reverse: offices as the default (two people per office okay, as long as there's space) with open space (with portable white boards, bean bag chairs, desks) in the middle for ad-hoc design/discussions. Cubicles do seem the worst of both world, however: an ad-hoc meeting is no longer so ad-hoc (as it requires hunting for an available conference room), but the noise/interruption issues are no better than open areas.
- kruipen 13y ago
  The best office space I've ever work at was like that. It was a relatively small part of one of MSFT buildings which Ray Ozzie carved out for the Mesh incubation. Everyone had a small private office with glass door/walls and in the middle there was big open area with couches, chairs, pillows, whiteboard walls and conference rooms.
  - wingspan 13y ago
    Interesting! I worked in that same office when FUSE Labs was there in the post-Ozzie time (2012), and like some of the other commenters pointed out, I never saw a single one of my coworkers doing actual work outside of their offices. It was awesome for team meetings, though.
- munificent 13y ago
  > I'd prefer the reverse: offices as the default (two people per office okay, as long as there's space) with open space (with portable white boards, bean bag chairs, desks) in the middle for ad-hoc design/discussions. I've worked in environments like that. Unfortunately, the open space looks like "not working" to people and is highly visible. Since no one wants to be publicly seen as not working, they just ended up being a very nicely decorated and inviting ghost town.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    So don't make it look like a break room.
etler 13y ago
Sounds like study rooms in college libraries. I like it. It solves the space problem and provides more flexibility than the office solution. Sometimes you do want to be around the rest of the team, and sometimes you're working closely with one co-worker and you need some one on one work time with them.
- jonlucc 13y ago
  I agree that they are the same in concept. In my limited experience, the college study rooms were used pretty much exclusively in the week or so leading up to finals. Where I work now, the same types of spaces are constantly filled. It could just be a matter of balancing the need with the availability of those kinds of rooms.
mejarc 13y ago
I'd lov this arrangement if it were the reverse of how I've seen it implemented. The meeting/private rooms should be in the center, away from the scarce windows, and the more frequently used common space should have the privilege of natural lighting. Too many conference rooms are allowed to hog the view.
- nlavezzo 13y ago
  This is how we've had our offices in previous companies, and the new office we're building will have this layout as well. It works great. You get privacy or you get sunlight :)
  - amag 13y ago
    Yay, nice subtle way to make people hate spending time in their private offices: Make it feel like a punishment, akin to solitairy confinement. No, a good private office should have natural light coming in through windows!
MikeTLive 13y ago
exactly my submission, many years ago, which matches what was ultimately used for our AWARD WINNING offices on the other side of the country. the local office is moving again and using low walled cubes in large rooms. It would be great for honest appraisal of office design and approval by the cubicle-bound-occupants and not the office-blessed-few.
diminoten 13y ago
This is how my company works - we have our open office, with our "cubes" out amongst everyone else, but we have tiny little work rooms with TVs and adapters, and the ability to close a door (well it's a glass door but still), and work. And no one's ever told me I can't work in one of them all day if I wanted to (I don't). I bet there'd be a discussion if I moved into one permanently, or even for more than a straight few days, but for now at least, we have the best of both worlds.
lispylol 13y ago
The worst is when, not only are you surrounded by private conversation, but forced to listen to godawful music blasting at full volume from the office stereo.
kabdib 13y ago
I worked in a hybrid environment at Apple (we had this office / common area setup in Infinite Loop). It was a great working environment, and I got a lot done. You could leave your door open and join in the conversation, or close your door and shut out the world for a while. I work in an open space plan at Valve now, and it's pretty decent. The thing that makes it decent is that desks are mobile; there is no assigned space (want an office? find an empty one and move in) so you can very easily choose who to work next to. This cuts down a great deal on interruptions caused by people interrupting the people /next/ to you, which I found was the actual source of randomization in most cubical environments. Also, stuffing more than a few dozen people into a shared area is probably bad. Don't do that.
- taylodl 13y ago
  Mobile desks. Let people move where they want to. If nothing else I get tired of looking at the same walls from the same angle day in and day out. I like variety. Overall though I prefer an open space environment with the ability to periodically go of to a quiet area for deep thinking. Sometimes you just need that solitude to do your best work.
- judk 13y ago
  A few dozen? More than 6 and you've got everyone's occasional quick chats adding up to constant distraction.
  - kabdib 13y ago
    Depends on the space; if it's big enough you can get away with more people (remember, they can shuffle). Sound-deadening floor and ceiling material helps a lot. The most important thing is still attitude toward your cow-orkers, though.
  - mcv 13y ago
    I've had very good experiences with anything from 5 up to 20.
IgorPartola 13y ago
This is the problem of the commons in its classic incarnation. If the private offices are shared, pretty soon you will have people either squatting in them or accusing others of squatting. Open layouts are a way to save lots of money per employee. They provide no tangible benefit over private offices that are big enough to have coding sessions in, but they cost a hell of a lot less. Next time someone tells you that they are more productive in an open layout office ask them if they had ever worked with an engaged and energetic team where everyone did have large private offices. Chances are, they did not and therefore have no basis for comparison.
itsboring 13y ago
I'm curious, why didn't you just tell the operations guy to piss off?

by pvnick 13y ago

acgourley 13y ago

Thanks for sharing, I've always thought that seemed like the right compromise. If I was looking to build a similar space, would you have any advice or observations?

pvnick 13y ago
Unfortunately, I've only ever been a spectator in the design of offices, I've never played much of an active role in their organization. The best advice I can offer is to have the utmost respect for your developers, since they are your prized assets. Give them good equipment, choices, and solicit them for feedback on what they want.
- amirmc 13y ago
  > "The best advice I can offer is to have the utmost respect for your developers, since they are your prized assets." Not just devs. Employers should have utmost respect for all their employees.
  - acdha 13y ago
    I wish I could upvote this more than once. It's too common for developers to assume they're more valuable rather than benefiting from a currently tighter job market.
    - pvnick 13y ago
      In economics terms, that's the same thing. Tighter job market, more competition for dev talent, devs have more choices, the good ones choose the environment that values them the most.
      - acdha 13y ago
        > In economics terms, that's the same thing. Only in the most simplistic understanding – anyone serious will factor in limited information and human irrationality rather than assuming that observed market behaviour represents Econ 101 game-theoretical optimal decisions. If you work at a large company, you might be well paid because you're working on the CEO's pet iOS project and there's a developer shortage. The market is working to give you higher pay but there's no relation to any sort of actual value. Most places don't even make a serious effort to quantify value or cost in a remotely scientific manner.
    - DougWebb 13y ago
      There's some of that, to be sure, but different employees are different. Everyone spends some amount of time doing collaborative work, and some amount of time doing individual work that requires concentration and focus. Different jobs require a different mix of these two kinds of work. Developers tend to spend most of their time on the individual concentration end of the spectrum, which is why you see comments like the parent's. But it applies just as much to anyone who requires an equivalent amount of individual focused work time each day. The logical outcome of this is that your office layout should be different for employee groups doing different types of work, but since having an office is seen as a perk of upper management, giving offices to some groups and open plan areas to other groups is seen as favoritism and elitism rather than simply providing the best environment for everyone's job, and I think that's a big reason why it doesn't often happen.
- wil421 13y ago
  Employees are your most prized asset I wouldn't limit it to just devs.
fishtoaster 13y ago
I've been in such an office, and I loved it. Some people, like me, spent most of their time in the main open space. Others camped out all day in a private office. Most moved between the two. From a design perspective: - Glass walls are nice. This office was a group space surrounded by smaller rooms (which had the windows). The offices were glass on the interior wall (facing the group space), which allowed light in, but opaque on the walls between offices, allowing for privacy. - Variety was important. Iirc, we had like 4-6 offices that would fit 2 people at desks, 3 that would fit 4 or 5 people around a table, and 1 that fit about 12 around a small conference table. This was for a 25-person company, and seemed to provide about the right amount of space. - We ended up soundproofing a few rooms because people would use them for calls or loud music playing and it'd disturb the neighboring offices.

fogonthedowns 13y ago

Same here. If you needed privacy you have it. If you wish to have a collaborative work space you have it. My mood changes, some days I can deal with others other days I just want to put my head down and program alone. This was a great option to have.

res0nat0r 13y ago

The large pharma I used to work for is still in the process of spending millions of dollars redoing all of their floors to open work space areas. Around the outside of the floors are "focus booths" which just have a small desk/phone/monitor setup for someone to work in for a few hours. These booths are always full and occupied by folks for the entire day, since most people don't like the loud open area workspace and sit in these small offices so they can have phone calls and concentrate.

owenmarshall 13y ago
Every time I've been involved in an open floor plan office I look at the conference rooms. They end up occupied by the most senior person that doesn't have an office. At one company where I worked management got offices, so it was senior developers staking out the conference rooms... at another, no one had an office, so the owner got the nicest conference room and some of the leads fought over the lesser ones.
- fein 13y ago
  Open office plan here. We have a little room tucked down a hallway that maybe 5-7 people know about, and no one uses. I've been in here for 3 weeks, and it's wonderful.
  - haliburton 13y ago
    We used to have one of those. It was called the "Tree House" because one guy filled it with plants. It was great. Then we moved offices - open floor plan - and we no longer have the equivalent. :(
Amadou 13y ago
most people don't like the loud open area workspace and sit in these small offices so they can have phone calls and concentrate. FWIW, good acoustical engineering can make a significant difference in how loud an open-space "feels." Putting sound-absorbing materials on all architectural features and hanging sound-diffusing baffles from the ceiling can change a loud room into a significantly quieter and less distracting room. It isn't a panacea, but it isn't hard to do. You will need someone experienced in room acoustics to design it for you. I'd still prefer small offices over an open space, but if management is stuck on having an open-space then getting good sound control in there will make the best of a bad situation. You can hear the reverse in a lot of trendy restaurants nowadays where, for some reason that I can't comprehend, it is fashionable to deliberately make the dining area as loud as possible. http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/07/adam-platt-on-loud-restaurants.html http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/07/adam-platt-on-loud-restaur...

strlen 13y ago

This was pretty similar to (at least the buildings I worked in 2012-2013) Facebook Menlo Park: open space, but many of small side offices for coding/ad-hoc meetings/views. Personally, however, I'd prefer the reverse: offices as the default (two people per office okay, as long as there's space) with open space (with portable white boards, bean bag chairs, desks) in the middle for ad-hoc design/discussions. Cubicles do seem the worst of both world, however: an ad-hoc meeting is no longer so ad-hoc (as it requires hunting for an available conference room), but the noise/interruption issues are no better than open areas.

kruipen 13y ago
The best office space I've ever work at was like that. It was a relatively small part of one of MSFT buildings which Ray Ozzie carved out for the Mesh incubation. Everyone had a small private office with glass door/walls and in the middle there was big open area with couches, chairs, pillows, whiteboard walls and conference rooms.
- wingspan 13y ago
  Interesting! I worked in that same office when FUSE Labs was there in the post-Ozzie time (2012), and like some of the other commenters pointed out, I never saw a single one of my coworkers doing actual work outside of their offices. It was awesome for team meetings, though.
munificent 13y ago
> I'd prefer the reverse: offices as the default (two people per office okay, as long as there's space) with open space (with portable white boards, bean bag chairs, desks) in the middle for ad-hoc design/discussions. I've worked in environments like that. Unfortunately, the open space looks like "not working" to people and is highly visible. Since no one wants to be publicly seen as not working, they just ended up being a very nicely decorated and inviting ghost town.
- rayiner 13y ago
  So don't make it look like a break room.

etler 13y ago

Sounds like study rooms in college libraries. I like it. It solves the space problem and provides more flexibility than the office solution. Sometimes you do want to be around the rest of the team, and sometimes you're working closely with one co-worker and you need some one on one work time with them.

jonlucc 13y ago
I agree that they are the same in concept. In my limited experience, the college study rooms were used pretty much exclusively in the week or so leading up to finals. Where I work now, the same types of spaces are constantly filled. It could just be a matter of balancing the need with the availability of those kinds of rooms.

mejarc 13y ago

I'd lov this arrangement if it were the reverse of how I've seen it implemented. The meeting/private rooms should be in the center, away from the scarce windows, and the more frequently used common space should have the privilege of natural lighting. Too many conference rooms are allowed to hog the view.

nlavezzo 13y ago
This is how we've had our offices in previous companies, and the new office we're building will have this layout as well. It works great. You get privacy or you get sunlight :)
- amag 13y ago
  Yay, nice subtle way to make people hate spending time in their private offices: Make it feel like a punishment, akin to solitairy confinement. No, a good private office should have natural light coming in through windows!

MikeTLive 13y ago

exactly my submission, many years ago, which matches what was ultimately used for our AWARD WINNING offices on the other side of the country. the local office is moving again and using low walled cubes in large rooms. It would be great for honest appraisal of office design and approval by the cubicle-bound-occupants and not the office-blessed-few.

diminoten 13y ago

This is how my company works - we have our open office, with our "cubes" out amongst everyone else, but we have tiny little work rooms with TVs and adapters, and the ability to close a door (well it's a glass door but still), and work. And no one's ever told me I can't work in one of them all day if I wanted to (I don't). I bet there'd be a discussion if I moved into one permanently, or even for more than a straight few days, but for now at least, we have the best of both worlds.

lispylol 13y ago

The worst is when, not only are you surrounded by private conversation, but forced to listen to godawful music blasting at full volume from the office stereo.

kabdib 13y ago

I worked in a hybrid environment at Apple (we had this office / common area setup in Infinite Loop). It was a great working environment, and I got a lot done. You could leave your door open and join in the conversation, or close your door and shut out the world for a while. I work in an open space plan at Valve now, and it's pretty decent. The thing that makes it decent is that desks are mobile; there is no assigned space (want an office? find an empty one and move in) so you can very easily choose who to work next to. This cuts down a great deal on interruptions caused by people interrupting the people /next/ to you, which I found was the actual source of randomization in most cubical environments. Also, stuffing more than a few dozen people into a shared area is probably bad. Don't do that.

taylodl 13y ago
Mobile desks. Let people move where they want to. If nothing else I get tired of looking at the same walls from the same angle day in and day out. I like variety. Overall though I prefer an open space environment with the ability to periodically go of to a quiet area for deep thinking. Sometimes you just need that solitude to do your best work.
judk 13y ago
A few dozen? More than 6 and you've got everyone's occasional quick chats adding up to constant distraction.
- kabdib 13y ago
  Depends on the space; if it's big enough you can get away with more people (remember, they can shuffle). Sound-deadening floor and ceiling material helps a lot. The most important thing is still attitude toward your cow-orkers, though.
- mcv 13y ago
  I've had very good experiences with anything from 5 up to 20.

IgorPartola 13y ago

This is the problem of the commons in its classic incarnation. If the private offices are shared, pretty soon you will have people either squatting in them or accusing others of squatting. Open layouts are a way to save lots of money per employee. They provide no tangible benefit over private offices that are big enough to have coding sessions in, but they cost a hell of a lot less. Next time someone tells you that they are more productive in an open layout office ask them if they had ever worked with an engaged and energetic team where everyone did have large private offices. Chances are, they did not and therefore have no basis for comparison.

itsboring 13y ago

I'm curious, why didn't you just tell the operations guy to piss off?