> Again the trend seems to be mixed plan. Open plan offices with private areas. What do you mean, "again"? This statement is the first mention of such in this

> Again the trend seems to be mixed plan. Open plan offices with private areas. What do you mean, "again"? This statement is the first mention of such in this sub-discussion. Also, I'm not going on a tangent about the joke that the "private areas" in such offices turn into or how infeasible this design is for many lines of business. > In which case you can not argue that there is significant money/effort involved. "Significant money and effort" as in the sum total devoted to finding solutions to the problem of distracting, sub-optimal environments being foisted upon engineers, not the cost to a single hypothetical engineer. > It's either the cost of headphones and the effort of walking tens of metres. That statement presumes: a) headphones are allowed; b) headphones work for everyone; c) people have work they can pick up and move; d) that private areas actually exist in sufficient quantity for those who want them; e) that private areas are not appropriated permanently by people up the political food chain. > Developers are going to need better arguments than that to convince HR/Management that this is not a trend worth doing. That statement assumes HR and Management care about any argument besides cost. Also, you completely ignored the point I was actually making, which is that throwing engineers together into a giant room does not give you the cross-pollination that so many management consultants claim you get.