<story><title>Where we&apos;re going, we don&apos;t need headphones</title><url>https://rradczewski.github.io/ymmv/2017/06/Where-we-are-going-we-dont-need-headphones</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gfodor</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s easy to severely underestimate the value of having people overhear conversations and interactions of others beyond their obvious scope of work. If you set things up so only explicitly opted-in collaborations occur, then those are the collaborations you will get: people who all agree they should work together on something. This is a subset of the types of interactions that I believe result in great teams. Many collaborations begin when one person overhears another person they had no idea was working on something relevant to them, or that they could give valuable input on.&lt;p&gt;As with anything, there is a balance, and I believe there is no silver bullet to designing good offices. But I question those who think there is, and that siloing humans into isolated offices (a fundamentally unnatural state) as the default is objectively the best option.&lt;p&gt;(And before citing the various studies showing the impact on productivity of doing this, I feel productivity is only one characteristic of what I personally consider to be a good measure of a healthy work environment.)</text></item><item><author>valuearb</author><text>I agree with the same concerns that Raimo and Markus have. It&amp;#x27;s not just acoustic noise, it&amp;#x27;s also visual noise. I face the entry to our open floor plan office and every time someone walks in I can&amp;#x27;t help but look to see who it is.&lt;p&gt;One man offices are cheap and by far the most productive work environment for software development. Any software development organization that&amp;#x27;s not investing in them isn&amp;#x27;t thinking strategically. Engineers should be able to face somewhere that&amp;#x27;s not distracting, and have a quiet work environment without requiring headphones (music can be a distraction too). If you want to collaborate, do it in your office, it should be big enough for a couple people to join you, or a conference room if you need more.&lt;p&gt;The only criticism I have for one man offices is that it makes it too easy to goof off and surf the web, but that&amp;#x27;s a different managerial problem. You should make sure all the offices have glass walls so you can see if someone is in their office and have an idea what they are doing. But mainly you should review all code as it&amp;#x27;s checked in for quality, and it should also give you a good idea of their productivity.&lt;p&gt;I think Apple has the best idea for this. Their work pods at the new campus have all glass walls facing the hallway, sliding doors to maximize room in the office, and built in storage. There looks to be plenty of room for a couple of coworkers to join you and help collaborate when need be.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>YZF</author><text>Offices do not mean having each person locked in their room never interacting with anyone else.  They mean you can close the door and be able to focus on something.&lt;p&gt;In my experience you get a lot more interaction when people have private offices, or at least cubes.  It&amp;#x27;s easy to walk into someone&amp;#x27;s office and have a discussion.  Easier than let&amp;#x27;s go find a meeting room so we don&amp;#x27;t disturb everyone.  It&amp;#x27;s also pretty easy to call other people in as needed and have an impromptu meeting without needing to book a room for that and without disturbing others.  Not to mention other technologies like e-mail, messaging etc.&lt;p&gt;The most collaborative places I worked in are those where people had offices and the least collaborative ones have open plans.  Anecdotal but there you have it.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s face it, open plan offices are about reducing cost and pretending to be collaborative.  It&amp;#x27;s the &amp;quot;Agile&amp;quot; of offices and I don&amp;#x27;t mean it in a good way.</text></comment>
<story><title>Where we&apos;re going, we don&apos;t need headphones</title><url>https://rradczewski.github.io/ymmv/2017/06/Where-we-are-going-we-dont-need-headphones</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gfodor</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s easy to severely underestimate the value of having people overhear conversations and interactions of others beyond their obvious scope of work. If you set things up so only explicitly opted-in collaborations occur, then those are the collaborations you will get: people who all agree they should work together on something. This is a subset of the types of interactions that I believe result in great teams. Many collaborations begin when one person overhears another person they had no idea was working on something relevant to them, or that they could give valuable input on.&lt;p&gt;As with anything, there is a balance, and I believe there is no silver bullet to designing good offices. But I question those who think there is, and that siloing humans into isolated offices (a fundamentally unnatural state) as the default is objectively the best option.&lt;p&gt;(And before citing the various studies showing the impact on productivity of doing this, I feel productivity is only one characteristic of what I personally consider to be a good measure of a healthy work environment.)</text></item><item><author>valuearb</author><text>I agree with the same concerns that Raimo and Markus have. It&amp;#x27;s not just acoustic noise, it&amp;#x27;s also visual noise. I face the entry to our open floor plan office and every time someone walks in I can&amp;#x27;t help but look to see who it is.&lt;p&gt;One man offices are cheap and by far the most productive work environment for software development. Any software development organization that&amp;#x27;s not investing in them isn&amp;#x27;t thinking strategically. Engineers should be able to face somewhere that&amp;#x27;s not distracting, and have a quiet work environment without requiring headphones (music can be a distraction too). If you want to collaborate, do it in your office, it should be big enough for a couple people to join you, or a conference room if you need more.&lt;p&gt;The only criticism I have for one man offices is that it makes it too easy to goof off and surf the web, but that&amp;#x27;s a different managerial problem. You should make sure all the offices have glass walls so you can see if someone is in their office and have an idea what they are doing. But mainly you should review all code as it&amp;#x27;s checked in for quality, and it should also give you a good idea of their productivity.&lt;p&gt;I think Apple has the best idea for this. Their work pods at the new campus have all glass walls facing the hallway, sliding doors to maximize room in the office, and built in storage. There looks to be plenty of room for a couple of coworkers to join you and help collaborate when need be.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>valuearb</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s better to work on making people better collaborators, than to ruin productivity on the off chance someone will hear something important in a conversation not meant for them. For example, I&amp;#x27;m working on using Slack more to cc people on questions I have or things I&amp;#x27;m doing so they have a chance to help&amp;#x2F;stop me or at least be aware of what I&amp;quot;m doing.&lt;p&gt;If you want a flexible collaborative environment without it&amp;#x27;s horrible effects on productivity, you could build Apple like pods surrounding an open area. Those who want to work in open areas would work in the middle. Those who need privacy to concentrate can still leave their sliders open during times they are open to collaborate.</text></comment>