Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work ✥ done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't ✥ know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in ✱ importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect ✞ sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can ✝ say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ✝ ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow ✲ they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame.
Instead I get forced into open collaboration-enhancing offices with the idea of increasing team productivity. But on scrums and all other things I am judged on the merits of personal productivity (tickets closed, issues resolved, whatever). This leaves me disgruntled because I have no way of showing to project managers that I've helped N people with their issues. They only care how many issues I closed.
This then shapes my personal values and how I judge myself as well. Which in turn makes me shun the open plan office. Which in turn ultimately makes me a worse engineer a few years down the line.
This is a problem.
I'm not saying that you are saying the opposite, I'm just saying that the cause/effect is very much up in the air. I never thought it was as straight forward as asking "what is better?" (as he rightly asks too)
Personally, I never looked for fame (and I'm old enough to say that I likely never will look for it). In the end, what I want is: to be right. Even if it takes 100 wrongs to get there. With that in mind, I would be better off if I was an extrovert as I'd probably get through the wrongs quicker than if I preferred my solitude.
But as it stands, I like to be able to stare absentmindedly in a random direction without the risk of accidentally glancing at someone's new hat or haircut.
I don't know if I am slower or slightly wrong. I would not rule it out, though. :)
There's nothing about being extroverted that makes you like concentrating less. ;)
The whole "easier to collaborate with others" with an open floor plan is just excuse. I communicate better over text chat anyway.
I don't know you of course but I really doubt that text chat would ever surpass the effectiveness of face to face communication.
The problem with a noisy open space environment is that my environment is going to decide when I can do work. When I have the inspiration to fix a problem and I need to be able to focus, this has to be on "my terms", not that of my environment.
I have no doubt that developers will write more code whilst in offices free of distraction. But the question is do they miss out on key business knowledge by not being around other people. Especially if they are in Agile feature teams.
Considering the amount of money and effort engineers put into blocking distractions in open-plan offices, it is probably about the same.
In which case you can not argue that there is significant money/effort involved. It's either the cost of headphones and the effort of walking tens of metres. Developers are going to need better arguments than that to convince HR/Management that this is not a trend worth doing.
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.
The debate is about whether or not we want to force employees to exclusively in a collaborative way, with no reliable option for quiet solo work -- as many of these "open office" workplaces do -- is a good idea.
Mainly, I'm curious about how they define productivity. An office full of people performing completely independent tasks is almost certainly less productive than having separate offices; the advantage of open offices comes when everyone's work is interrelated. In an open environment, whenever I need to make a decision on implementation, I can easily ask someone intimately familiar with the area my code effects, and vice versa. The result is that people are more likely to make the better choices for the long-term future of the code base.
I'm also curious if there are any longitudinal studies that address moral. I wouldn't be surprised if people in open offices feel less like a cog in the system. I could also imagine it's a lot harder to develop a hatred of your coworkers and your boss if they're working right in front of you.
There's a good New Yorker article[1] from last year that references a number of studies. This blog post[2] links to a couple others and addresses costs/alternatives. Also, "a study of over 40,000 survey responses collected over a decade has found that the benefits for workers are quickly outweighed by the disadvantages"[3]. Here's a Washington Post article[4] referencing Facebook's new building and linking to a few other studies.
Of course you can certainly decide to dismiss the research and base your opinion on anecdotes or assumptions, but don't judge research as being poorly done just because you disagree with the findings.
[1] http://www.newyorker.com/currency-tag/the-open-office-trap
[2] http://nathanmarz.com/blog/the-inexplicable-rise-of-open-flo...
[3] http://theconversation.com/open-plan-offices-attract-highest...
[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/g...
Development is always tricky because often you need clear air to solve problems but then occasionally collaboration is required.
1. Open plan for day-to-day with some private rooms. 2. Private rooms for day-to-day with lots of breakout rooms (or similar).
I think the first is cheaper (lower square footage), but I'd much rather work in the second.
Technology might get us there someday.
Also, what happens during flu season? How many people are gone and how often vs private office setting? I'd love to see a study on this.
I am working in a company that is redesigning the building to be more open plan. It is clear that HR is driving the decision not architects or interior designers.
As far as noise goes, even with audio engineers on staff, the level of disruptive noise was horrible. People having calls at their desks, testing mobile notifications, etc. Thankfully, I worked at home 50+% of the time as getting productive work done in the office was incredibly difficult. Large open space + open office = bad idea.
Our office in Stockholm, while an open office, had many smaller sections offset by walls, break rooms, etc. It was a much better experience overall, but still not optimal.
1. I have glasses and a hearing aid (cochlear implant) and have yet to find headphones that don't make my left ear/head throb with pain after more than six hours.
2. Visual distractions: people walking through, people seemingly approaching me (but actually approaching someone nearby), people waving, etc. are all just as bad as auditory distractions, if not worse for me personally since I tend to rely heavily on vision to replace what I can't hear.