

What's the difference between an advocate of open space office and an idiot? - scalahacker
http://geekingspree.com/mess/whats-the-difference-between-an-advocate-of-open-space-office-and-an-idiot-40

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potatolicious
That's twice I've hit the flag button this week, I think that's a new record.

The debate isn't new, and this blog post doesn't say anything that
hundreds/thousands of other blog posts haven't already discussed. HN itself
has had its regular round-table on open-plan offices for eons now. The only
difference here is that this blog post descends into ad hominem right in the
subject line.

I've worked in a terrible open plan space, I've also worked in a remarkably
productive one. I've seen some of the horrible ways it can fail, I've also
seem some of the ways it can be great.

The debate is worth having, but not if it's "everyone who doesn't agree with
me is a blithering idiot".

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nick2
but have you ever worked in a terrible private office set up?

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potatolicious
Yes. It was depressing, and having to get up off your ass to discuss even the
slightest triviality was annoying to no end.

I like my current open setup. I'm not a fan of _all_ open setups, but there
are advantages above and beyond the oft-quoted one of cost. There are also
tools that seek to replicate the advantages of being physically next to the
person you need to communicate with, but in my experience they are pale
facsimiles of the real thing.

Screen sharing, video conferencing, IM, shared whiteboarding (this last one is
by far the worst, not a single product I've ever seen in this space has been
anything but terrible). None of these are "good enough" replicas of sitting
next to someone.

When I worked in a private office setup even just wrangling people for
scheduled meetings was a pain in the ass. So even actually trying to talk to
some people face to face was terrible - the culture developed a tolerance for
lateness. Someone's in the zone and making code sing, they can be 90 seconds
late to the meeting. Then everyone starts being 90 seconds late. Then 2
minutes. Then 3... Before you know it the first 10 minutes of every scheduled
meeting was a complete writeoff.

But that's a cultural problem that can be fixed - as are nearly all problems
with open plan.

I'm not an open-plan zealot, I've seen how it can fail terribly. I've also
seen how it can be great for my productivity and the productivity of my team.
I object to being called an idiot because I've had good experiences with open
plan spaces, and the author has not.

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nick2
My only guess would be cost. Any idea how much are the savings of open space
office vs. private office?

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jwatte
There's cost, and there's availability. You will literally have a very hard
time finding offices-based real estate in the silicon valley for any
reasonable size organization. Landlords don't build it.

Let's say offices take 150 sqft per employee, and open plans take 75 sqft per
employee. At $8 per sqft, this is an additional $600 per employee. Money out
is easy to measure. Productivity and disruption (as well as serendipity) is
close to impossible to measure accurately.

