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Wouldn't an architecture firm be advocating for more space? Cornell did a study awhile back that found that employees with their own private offices collaborat

by abalone 12y ago

Wouldn't an architecture firm be advocating for more space? Cornell did a study awhile back that found that employees with their own private offices collaborate less often with their colleagues. A lot less. In fact their very perception of what constituted "frequent" interaction plummeted from several times a day to a few times a week. And it happened in scheduled meetings whereas it was more ad hoc in an open plan office. They also noted something very interesting: we tend to prioritize our own personal productivity over team productivity, probably because most of us are compensated and promoted based on personal accomplishments. You can see why management struggles with balancing these two objectives in space design. I think most of the comments here are very cynical but not very well reasoned. They tend to have not very well thought through conspiracy theories, like architecture firms wanting smaller spaces (what?) or pinning it all on cost cutting. Cost cutting? Businesses pay engineers HUGE salaries; if there was clear evidence that a given office plan was significantly less productive it would logically be a huge waste of money to put their highly paid employees in it. The reality is there is a balance of individual and team productivity that organizations need to achieve. We have learned a lot about the drawbacks to purely private office layouts (like lower team collaboration and depressingly poor social interaction). We are learning about the drawbacks to purely one big open plan layouts (like noise as it scales beyond a handful). There is no one easy solution. Source: Organizational Dilemmas and Workplace Solutions ‐ Work Effectiveness, Communication, and Office - Cornell University International Workplace Studies Program https://web.archive.org/web/20140615182702/http://iwsp.human.cornell.edu/file_uploads/office_ex2_1238259706.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20140615182702/http://iwsp.human...

hammerandtongs 12y ago
There are actually a large number of these studies of which the one you linked is...one. Your logic as to why management makes these choices suggests you think organizations operate on logic vs institutional habits, trends and intra organization conflict. Citation needed ;). Your survey of sentiment of the comments here (or the thousands made in similar posts) doesn't seem particular rich or nuanced, perhaps you are working deliberately with a supposition that your current situation is "just fine"?
- abalone 12y ago
  Open plan is a relatively recent trend[1], ergo it cannot reflect an "institutional habit". Again with the poor reasoning. One thing the Cornell study highlights is how engineers have a class bias in favor of maximum individual productivity. That is how they are rewarded. It would follow that there would be many "thousands" of comments in favor of private offices. Where these seem to fall flat is in explaining why management nonetheless build open plan offices that optimize for team collaboration, e.g. ascribing it to "greed" or "habit" or "architecture firm conspiracy" -- that is where the logic errors arise. [1] It is also a very old trend historically, but in the tech sector it is a recent trend following cubes and offices.
  - zzalpha 12y ago
    Recent? Cubicle farms have been around for 30 years, now. We're simply at the truly extreme end of a very long term trend. As for why, the answers there are fairly simple: cost and snake oil. 30 years ago open plans and cubicles were pitched as a way to increase "collaboration", with no corroborating evidence that showed a commensurate increase in overall productivity. It was, to put it plainly, salesmanship and BS. I'd strongly recommend a pass through Peopleware for a more thorough treatment on the topic.
    - abalone 12y ago
      Open plan is a distinctly different approach than cubicles.
      - zzalpha 12y ago
        True. It seems cubicles were an attempt to undo some of the damage of open plan architecture, which goes back even further than I thought: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origin-of-cubicles-an/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origin-of-cubi... Damn you, Frank Lloyd Wright!
s73v3r 12y ago
I know I prioritize my productivity over that of the team because that's what I'm judged on. If I spend a lot of time helping the team, but at the cost of not getting my work done on time, then I don't get praised for helping the team; I get chastised for not getting my work done.
AlexandrB 12y ago
There's an inherent distrust of management's motives in this case because moving to an open layout from a more private one happens to align with some of the worst "management" tropes: micromanagement and cost-cutting. > if there was clear evidence that a given office plan was significantly less productive it would logically be a huge waste of money to put their highly paid employees in it. Yes, but as no one can effectively quantify employee performance in "knowledge work", no one will be rewarded for "improvements in productivity". Cutting facility costs has a measurable impact however.
- abalone 12y ago
  > no one can effectively quantify employee performance in "knowledge work" That's certainly not universally true. You can look at engineer commits, bug counts, speed of execution, all sort of metrics that would be directly impacted by distractions. If these were plummeting under open plan it would be pretty clear to management that it was costing them more money, not less.
jmccree 12y ago
I searched that study and found no references to chat rooms. It's my theory that private offices and enthusiastic chat room use has the advantages of both. I suspect there may be a generation gap in familiarness of asynchronous instant communication. The avg 18-24 year old sends ~100+ txts a day, 45+ goes to 10-15. [1] People who've grown up up using txts, face book chat, IRC, AIM, etc. seem to see chat as a "default medium" for communication, where as those without that experience (not necessarily just an age thing, plenty of 30+ who spent decades on freenode etc) some times have a view of "being forced to use chat" instead of just knocking on someones door. [1] http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/09/19/how-americans-use-text-messaging/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/09/19/how-americans-use-text...
vonmoltke 12y ago
I'm late to the party, but... > Cost cutting? Businesses pay engineers HUGE salaries; if there was clear evidence that a given office plan was significantly less productive it would logically be a huge waste of money to put their highly paid employees in it. That depends on the business. I have only worked with companies that do primarily government contracting. Engineer salaries get billed to specific government contracts. Facilities costs come out of general overhead. The first bucket generates revenue for the company, since they bill us out for more than they pay us (including benefits); the second bucket is limited, severely in some cases, and pooled across the entire company. In such a system, cost cutting on perks and facilities makes rational sense because the people controlling the budget for those things don't give a shit about salaries. Any company wherein money for facilities is separated from money for salaries is going to be vulnerable to such pressures.

by abalone 12y ago

hammerandtongs 12y ago

There are actually a large number of these studies of which the one you linked is...one. Your logic as to why management makes these choices suggests you think organizations operate on logic vs institutional habits, trends and intra organization conflict. Citation needed ;). Your survey of sentiment of the comments here (or the thousands made in similar posts) doesn't seem particular rich or nuanced, perhaps you are working deliberately with a supposition that your current situation is "just fine"?

abalone 12y ago
Open plan is a relatively recent trend[1], ergo it cannot reflect an "institutional habit". Again with the poor reasoning. One thing the Cornell study highlights is how engineers have a class bias in favor of maximum individual productivity. That is how they are rewarded. It would follow that there would be many "thousands" of comments in favor of private offices. Where these seem to fall flat is in explaining why management nonetheless build open plan offices that optimize for team collaboration, e.g. ascribing it to "greed" or "habit" or "architecture firm conspiracy" -- that is where the logic errors arise. [1] It is also a very old trend historically, but in the tech sector it is a recent trend following cubes and offices.
- zzalpha 12y ago
  Recent? Cubicle farms have been around for 30 years, now. We're simply at the truly extreme end of a very long term trend. As for why, the answers there are fairly simple: cost and snake oil. 30 years ago open plans and cubicles were pitched as a way to increase "collaboration", with no corroborating evidence that showed a commensurate increase in overall productivity. It was, to put it plainly, salesmanship and BS. I'd strongly recommend a pass through Peopleware for a more thorough treatment on the topic.
  - abalone 12y ago
    Open plan is a distinctly different approach than cubicles.
    - zzalpha 12y ago
      True. It seems cubicles were an attempt to undo some of the damage of open plan architecture, which goes back even further than I thought: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origin-of-cubicles-an/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origin-of-cubi... Damn you, Frank Lloyd Wright!

s73v3r 12y ago

I know I prioritize my productivity over that of the team because that's what I'm judged on. If I spend a lot of time helping the team, but at the cost of not getting my work done on time, then I don't get praised for helping the team; I get chastised for not getting my work done.

AlexandrB 12y ago

There's an inherent distrust of management's motives in this case because moving to an open layout from a more private one happens to align with some of the worst "management" tropes: micromanagement and cost-cutting. > if there was clear evidence that a given office plan was significantly less productive it would logically be a huge waste of money to put their highly paid employees in it. Yes, but as no one can effectively quantify employee performance in "knowledge work", no one will be rewarded for "improvements in productivity". Cutting facility costs has a measurable impact however.

abalone 12y ago
> no one can effectively quantify employee performance in "knowledge work" That's certainly not universally true. You can look at engineer commits, bug counts, speed of execution, all sort of metrics that would be directly impacted by distractions. If these were plummeting under open plan it would be pretty clear to management that it was costing them more money, not less.

jmccree 12y ago

I searched that study and found no references to chat rooms. It's my theory that private offices and enthusiastic chat room use has the advantages of both. I suspect there may be a generation gap in familiarness of asynchronous instant communication. The avg 18-24 year old sends ~100+ txts a day, 45+ goes to 10-15. [1] People who've grown up up using txts, face book chat, IRC, AIM, etc. seem to see chat as a "default medium" for communication, where as those without that experience (not necessarily just an age thing, plenty of 30+ who spent decades on freenode etc) some times have a view of "being forced to use chat" instead of just knocking on someones door. [1] http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/09/19/how-americans-use-text-messaging/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/09/19/how-americans-use-text...

vonmoltke 12y ago

I'm late to the party, but... > Cost cutting? Businesses pay engineers HUGE salaries; if there was clear evidence that a given office plan was significantly less productive it would logically be a huge waste of money to put their highly paid employees in it. That depends on the business. I have only worked with companies that do primarily government contracting. Engineer salaries get billed to specific government contracts. Facilities costs come out of general overhead. The first bucket generates revenue for the company, since they bill us out for more than they pay us (including benefits); the second bucket is limited, severely in some cases, and pooled across the entire company. In such a system, cost cutting on perks and facilities makes rational sense because the people controlling the budget for those things don't give a shit about salaries. Any company wherein money for facilities is separated from money for salaries is going to be vulnerable to such pressures.