Comment by cliffcrosland | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cliffcrosland | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, studies also show that "radical collocation" can increase software development productivity. This study from the University of Michigan claims that productivity was doubled when developers worked together in specially designed "war rooms" that allowed for both spontaneous meetings and moments of solitude: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/220879336_How_does_r...

This quote summarizes the results well:

"Although the teammates were not looking forward to working in close quarters, over time they realized the benefits of having people at hand, both for coordination, problem solving and learning. They adapted to the distractions of radical collocation, both by removing themselves to nearby hotelling areas when they needed privacy, and by zoning out, made possible because of the distance between people in the larger rooms."

It feels productive to enter a flow-like state for several hours debugging a problem, but it's probably more productive if a teammate notices and provides the solution in minutes. Nevertheless, stretches of uninterrupted focus are often essential.

I think that's one thing that gets missed in these discussions: software development is different from, say, accounting or administration or whatever.

I get huge value out of being right beside the people that can answer the questions I have, and I know that they get value being near me. Putting walls between people and enforcing no-interruption work inhibits communication and makes it much easier to get blocked.

At our office, I actively encourage every new hire to interrupt me and ask a question when they get stuck. (I actually get kind of annoyed when they don't). Lots of people, especially more junior devs, will sit down at a problem and really get lost for a day trying to figure it all out themselves. I'd way rather be interrupted for a 15 minute explanation of some bit of code than have them lose a day.

> I get huge value out of being right beside the people that can answer the questions I have

As someone who -- in my workplace -- is more often than not on the receiving end of questions or calls for help, I find it extremely distracting. There have been entire days where I wasn't able to focus on my own work because everyone else had questions to answer, or bugs that they needed help working through. I can't fault them for asking for help, but I definitely get frustrated at the situation, because sometimes at the end of the day I end up feeling like I haven't accomplished anything.

Oh, so do I (and I'm more often on the receiving end, too). No question, there's a cost to being interrupted. Personally, I have to actively push back against my own displeasure at being interrupted.

At the end of the day, though, the value those interruptions bring to the project make them worthwhile. Problems are avoided before they become problems. Knowledge is transferred without forcing someone to learn it from the ground up themselves. Time is saved (maybe not my time, but project-time).

(Obviously, if you're consistently being interrupted with low-value, easy-to-answer questions, that's a bit different... there comes a point where you say "ok, spend a bit more time, and if you can't get it then I'll work more with you")

Then the question is whether team productivity has gone up, even though your own personal productivity may have gone down? You probably accomplished a lot being helpful, though I know that doesn't help how you feel. And if your performance is tied to personal productivity, then that is a real bummer.

The "nearby hotelling areas" thing is okay when you do everything on a laptop, but as developers we tend to have all our state on a desktop machine driving 2 or 3 large monitors. We can't just pick it up and go into a "focus room", as they're called where I work.

My own opinion is that it should be the other way around. In the open space, library rules apply: brief whispered conversations only. For extended discussions, go into a "focus room".

That, I think, could work.

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