2 ms·

I think there's a balance to be struck. I used to think that programmers complaining about open office spaces were just nitpicking... then I learned how to pro

I think there's a balance to be struck. I used to think that programmers complaining about open office spaces were just nitpicking... then I learned how to program. Open offices are a reason for headphones at best and a nightmare at worst. That having been said, I've worked in spaces where everyone had their own private office. It was great for productivity, but I felt like I never got to know anyone. All communication was forced, which caused a lot of annoying and unnecessary meetings. I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's probably somewhere in the middle.

bmj 12y ago
Having worked in a variety of office environments over the last 15 years, my favorite has been shared, closed office space. My employee moved into a relatively small building which had 2-3 person offices in it. The devs were one, QC in another, sales in another. It worked quite well. We could close our door, but still collaborate when we needed to. We also had several meeting rooms if we needed to talk between teams. I'm also not against the "pod"-style cubes (4 or so people in a large cube), assuming the pods aren't cramped on top of one another.