
Why open-office layouts are bad for employees, bosses, and productivity - jtoeman
http://www.fastcompany.com/3019758/dialed/offices-for-all-why-open-office-layouts-are-bad-for-employees-bosses-and-productivity
======
pvnick
The best environment I've ever worked in was a combination open office,
private space hybrid. You had your desk, whether you wanted a sitting desk or
standing desk, you could choose from either, and you were by default in the
open office area. However, surrounding this large room were a dozen or so
closed offices where you could pop in and have a meeting or do some coding in
private.

However, one of the organize-all-the-things guys on the internal operations
team once caught me in a coding marathon in one of those offices and sent an
email to the entire company "reminding" everyone that those offices were for
_God-knows-what-he-thought-they-were-for_ , not for work. So I returned to my
ergonomic island and toiled away, surrounded by the noise of a hundred private
conversations.

I've always thought since then that if that had panned out, that you could
choose at any moment if you wanted to be in the open room or in a private room
in the perimeter, that would have been the ideal layout.

~~~
res0nat0r
The large pharma I used to work for is still in the process of spending
millions of dollars redoing all of their floors to open work space areas.
Around the outside of the floors are "focus booths" which just have a small
desk/phone/monitor setup for someone to work in for a few hours.

These booths are always full and occupied by folks for the entire day, since
most people don't like the loud open area workspace and sit in these small
offices so they can have phone calls and concentrate.

~~~
Amadou
_most people don 't like the loud open area workspace and sit in these small
offices so they can have phone calls and concentrate._

FWIW, good acoustical engineering can make a significant difference in how
loud an open-space "feels." Putting sound-absorbing materials on all
architectural features and hanging sound-diffusing baffles from the ceiling
can change a loud room into a significantly quieter and less distracting room.

It isn't a panacea, but it isn't hard to do. You will need someone experienced
in room acoustics to design it for you. I'd still prefer small offices over an
open space, but if management is stuck on having an open-space then getting
good sound control in there will make the best of a bad situation.

You can hear the reverse in a lot of trendy restaurants nowadays where, for
some reason that I can't comprehend, it is fashionable to deliberately make
the dining area as loud as possible.

[http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/07/adam-platt-on-loud-
restaur...](http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/07/adam-platt-on-loud-
restaurants.html)

~~~
positr0n
I can't google for references now, but restaurants like loud dining areas
because there is a linear relationship between the dB of background noise and
the money customers spend on drinks.

~~~
jonafato
I haven't seen the references you mentioned, but is it possible that the cause
and effect here are swapped? It seems more likely that increased drinking
leads to increased noise.

~~~
rcthompson
I believe the logic is that talking and drinking compete for the oral mutex,
so limiting the ability to talk (by making it so loud that talking becomes
pointless because nobody can ear you) increases drinking throughput. Or
something like that.

------
pasbesoin
Perhaps the worst aspect of all this, is the purposeful, or even casual,
ideologue. An arrangement works for them, or they think it does -- or, BEST
PRACTICES dictate that it should... and viola, a dictate.

I am one who needs some control over his environment. In the majority of
cases, these means peace and quiet particularly/mostly from human noise, as
well as a lack of visual distraction. (Although there are times when I work
well -- best even -- in a frenetic environment; however, these are limited in
both type and frequency.)

I'm a bit older, and I fell into a generation that was subscribing to and
prescribing whole-heartedly the "open", "collaborative" environment.

It did not work for me. Yet I received _unrelenting_ pressure, including from
medical professionals, that _I_ was the one who... "simply" needed to learn to
adapt.

Well... now we know a bit better. (Although I don't trust society to have
truly "learned" this in any permanent fashion.) But the chronic stress of this
situation has caused for me major adjustments in career and, eventually,
rather run me down.

To put the bottom line at the bottom, here: If a situation is not working for
you, IT IS NOT WORKING FOR YOU. TRUST THIS. TRUST YOURSELF!

"Professionals" of varying occupations and levels of training will all --
_ALL_ \-- tell you all kinds of crap. Even several years of medical school
does not divorce most from their prejudices nor from cultural suasion.

Don't waste your time -- your life -- running yourself down trying to live up
to someone else's idea of the "right way".

~~~
w0rd-driven
Definitely. I'd add, if "medical professionals" were telling you you were
wrong from something you felt clearly, run away. You aren't incorrect or just
"need to adapt". We are all not built the same and as an introvert I do fit
the "only critics" mold but damn do open plans suck for me.

I'm in a large shared office of 4 desks. I have a single coworker that sits
right next to me though him or I moving to the vacant lot doesn't really cross
our minds. I am however consistently distracted as he's particularly fidgety,
talks to himself (I do when I'm alone), and either chews really loudly or I've
just grown to hate it. I have had no problems with him as a person but the
effects of the constant disruption bring about a certain disdain towards
others that distract him or myself. I can't divorce myself from it and my ears
can't take a full day of headphones even if I severely enjoy the music I
listen to.

I see open plans as facilitators in nothing but pain all around and where I am
currently. We've always been in a open office cube farm of some nature but
something about the move to a new place specifically designed to be this way
was a bigger kick in the balls than I had anticipated. I can't think of any
place that would prize distractions as a badge of honor either, at least not
where developers are concerned. Yet that's exactly what we have now and that
I've allowed some shitty process to make me this much of a shitty person is
the real problem. Its like I can't ever correct it either so I just need to
move on or it's going to continue to push me into atrophy.

Basically your last paragraph is key. Notice this early. If you can change
policy for your sake, good. If you can't, run away. You don't deserve the
inevitable downturn it'll have on your livelihood.

------
at-fates-hands
It's interesting to note most people don't know the history of the cubicle and
why it was invented in the first place:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubicle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubicle)

"The office cubicle was created by designer Robert Propst for Herman Miller,
and released in 1967 under the name "Action Office II". Although cubicles are
often seen as being symbolic of work in a modern office setting due to their
uniformity and blandness, they afford the employee a greater degree of privacy
and personalization than in previous work environments, which often consisted
of desks lined up in rows within an open room.[1][2

Image of an office circa 1937:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Photograph_of_the_Division...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Photograph_of_the_Division_of_Classification_and_Cataloging,_1937.tif)

I've never liked the open office layouts anyways. The two companies I worked
for used it and it was tremendously noisy and so I usually did anything I
could to avoid having to work in the office. Either by going to the cafeteria
to work, or staying home. It made both of the teams I worked on very
inefficient. The exact opposite goal it was meant to address.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
There's another huge reason the cubicle office is dominant: Cubicles are
immediately tax deductible, while building out offices is considered a capital
improvement, and therefore has to be depreciated over a longer period of time.

Tax law all too frequently shapes behavior, and this is one of those cases.

~~~
haliburton
Yikes. I'd never even considered that.

Do you have any other (terrifying) examples?

~~~
akgerber
I have heard it asserted that the reason for poor construction quality of
postwar US commercial buildings in their 39-year depreciation life:
[http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/irs-depreciation-
schedule-...](http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/irs-depreciation-schedule-
commercial-real-estate-15798.html)

Hence the lack of much brick or stone, built-for-the-ages construction beyond
veneers.

------
wbond
My company gives all engineers their own office with a door. Recently four of
us petitioned to be able to have an open office together. We collaborate
better, feel generally happier, and knowledge sharing happens so much more
fluidly.

I was going crazy the first 6 months here because I was holed up in a office
by myself with little in-person communication. There was no benefit to being
in the office versus working remotely. My first attempt was to get the company
a HipChat account for engineers to stay more connected. I even pushed for a
couple of monthly engineer events so I would have an opportunity to interact
with other engineers.

Open office setups can go horribly wrong. Never allow anyone who spends time
on the phone into the open office setup. That stifles all interaction due to
the need for silence. Additionally, engineers are forced to listen to a single
side of a conversation that likely has nothing directly to do with the
engineers. Project and account managers have a valuable job, and engineers
should not need to be distracted by work that is not related to what they need
to accomplish.

Additionally, I believe an open office for engineers should be reasonably
small (4-10 people), and there should be some common responsibilities or
projects between the engineers.

Other steps can be taken to give people the appropriate space for the task at
hand. I've used a stand-up desk for the past three years. I hardly ever spend
a whole day standing. I alternate between sitting and standing as my body
gives me signals. Similarly, having quiet space (alternatively headphones, if
desired) to crank on certain work can be useful useful. That said, three of
the four of us have not used solitary space in the past 2 months.

Basically all of this is to say the issue is not black and white. If you
prefer to work in a private office, like more than half of the engineers at my
company do, that's fine. If you prefer to work in the company of others, that
is fine too. Not everyone wants to work at a startup, and not everyone hates
working for big financial companies.

~~~
marcosdumay
Team-sized open plans look interesting. Even better if there is plenty of
private space (like meeting rooms) available for people never using all of
them... But that arranjement is unstable - the meeting rooms won't survive
office politics - much better to have private offices for everybody, with an
open "patio" shared by the entire team where you could work if you want (yes,
I did keep the arranjement, just changed the names).

As an afterthought, now that phones are all VoIP, are there WiFi endpoints
available for sale?

~~~
dade_
Sure, just be sure your WiFi network has been deployed for voice (much higher
density of APs). Cisco Jabber, Avaya One-X, Microsoft Lync are all available
on PC, Mac, Android and iOS. For Asterisk and SIP based deployments, Bria
makes an excellent softphone for the same platforms. I seriously cannot
understand the lasting attachment people have for $400 plastic devices, but
using a tablet or smartphone avoids problems caused by an unstable/busy PC. In
2005, at an accounting firm (conservative user base, broad mix of ages)
voluntary / satisfied softphone users was 35%, today I would expect it would
be nearly double. Never hurts to ask the IT department.

~~~
marcosdumay
> I seriously cannot understand the lasting attachment people have for $400
> plastic devices

It helps to have a phone that is not the computer you are working on. At least
for me that excludes any tablet I have on hand (if I have it nearby, there's
probably something there that I should read). I didn't think about using
smartphones - bring your own SIP endpoints for work, could be nice.

~~~
caw
> It helps to have a phone that is not the computer you are working on.

Agreed. A coworker of mine rolled back to a restore point, which caused his
computer to get kicked off the domain. He couldn't log in at all, so he had to
call IT. The problem was his phone was a softphone on his computer.

~~~
walshemj
The problem is that your company is a cheapskate outfit just buy a separate ip
based phone and plug that into the other port at your desk - oh you did follow
standard practice and pull two cat5's to every desk.

~~~
caw
We have hotel cubes now. We can't assign names to a hardware phone because a
different person could be sitting in the desk every day, and giving someone a
floating hardware phone would mean you have to carry it home daily.

Not sure if we have 2 drops per cube. There's 2 ports, but I don't know if
they're active, cabled but not hooked up to a switch, or not even run to the
cube. Haven't bothered to test because our old Cisco phones had a pass-through
port, and now I only have 1 device that could use an ethernet port.

------
rayiner
I find it hilarious that a bunch of people who work on internet technologies
apparently need so much face-to-face communication.

If you want my attention, send me an e-mail. Also: get off my lawn.

~~~
hvs
Face-to-face communication is the primary and most efficient way for humans to
interact. Coming to a consensus in email with more than two people is a
nightmare.

~~~
TheCraiggers
This is over-generalized. Most generalizations about the human race are based
off of extroverted personalities, and not the introverted people that comprise
the vast bulk of programmers.

This is now pure anecdotal, but the programmers I know prefer to communicate
over email, if they're forced to communicate at all. Typically, because this
allows them to take the time to get their point across perfectly before
sending it.

Programmers have done amazing things while collaborating on massive projects
across the planet using nothing but mailing lists and the occasional IRC chat.
While this doesn't disprove they might not have communicated _better_ if they
were all in one big room together, I'd say it does shine some doubt.

Also, for what it's worth, I'm currently typing this from an open floor plan
and I quite dislike it. I miss my quiet office.

~~~
foobarian
I am an introvert but when trying to communicate something complicated that
requires lots of roundtrips, I'll take a 15 minute face-to-face meeting over a
day long email chain full of misunderstanding any day of the week. Any company
where this is understood will move fast and kick ass.

~~~
TheCraiggers
I don't disagree with you. However, the problem arises when said company
decides to stick everyone in a big room and says "go forth and collaborate."
Before having my office moved into an open floor plan, we still had plenty of
face-to-face conversations. Meetings, hallway talks, getting up and walking to
another's office, and phone calls were still an option when email wasn't.

Taken as a whole, I think programmers realize that email is a tool like any
other- it has its uses, and its times when it should not be used. I feel the
same could be said for group settings- there are times it makes sense, and
there are times when it doesn't. I'll never understand the tendency of
corporations to say "This methodology is good in this particular set of
variables, therefor we will use it 100% of the time for every situation."

------
macspoofing
Heh. Open layouts were a response to the cubicle system which isolated people
and gave the impression that you are nothing but cattle on an assembly line.
It also reinforced status (size of cubicle/office/location). Just watch any
80s or 90s movie. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way. Have the
original problems with cubicles been solved?

The problem is that people look for ideological purity and look to absolutes
because an unambiguous answer seems simple, whereas the reality is quite grey.
The reality is that some people work better in cubicles, and some prefer open
layouts. To complicate things even further, some situations call for one,
others call for the other.

I see a similar debate going on between proponents of traditional schools
(rows of desks, and teacher in front) and structure-less/self-pacing schools.
Which is better? Well, some kids thrive in one, others thrive in the other.
Worse, some kids get absolutely destroyed within the wrong king of system.

There are no simple answers.

~~~
mkesper
Strange. Never seen cubicles here in Europe.

~~~
lotsofcows
Really? In the UK it seems to be pretty normal in the newer buildings. My
first experience of them was at a city bank shortly before 2000. Very nice
interview, all going swimmingly, "Let me show you around our offices"...

The programmers sat near the printer so that people could hassle them every
time it ran out of paper. You could identify where the sales team sat before
you entered the room. Everybody above the rank of team leader had an office
elsewhere.

The next interview I went to was also open plan - in the sense that 5
programmers shared a decent size office. Stayed there for almost 10 years.

------
Macsenour
My last company visited a company with open office and took pictures to prove
to us how great it is. In the pictures the people are hunched down behind
their screens, to avoid the distraction of the person facing them, and 90%
have head phones on because of the noise distraction.

Basically, they were in mental cubes when they were lacking physical cubes.

P.S. The company I worked for went with the open office, productivity
plummeted and the office is now closed. When I pointed out the above issues in
the pictures I was told: "You don't like it? Maybe you need to work somewhere
else". Well, now, they all work somewhere else.

------
raldi
They had open-office layouts 100 years ago, too. Back then, though, they
called them sweatshops.

~~~
equalarrow
Hah, nice. I sometimes think that..

A few years back I worked for a prominent design company. Our small group (of
4) had a nice little corner of 1/4 of an entire floor. "Oooh, nice, brick
walls and people that look busy" I thought when I first joined. Not even a
week later, reality started to set it. It was so ridiculously noisy.

And there were, of course, a few people that contributed to everything. I
would sometimes get in around 8, it would be quiet and the usual offenders
were actually working. From 10-6, it was like, forget it, noise non-stop.
After 6, back to quiet.

This became really frustrating and after asking the offenders to chill, I made
a trip to HR to ask wtf? HR was basically like, meh, nothing we can do. I
ended up wishing those offenders would quit or worse. It was so bad and they
were so loud.

After that I was like, never again an open floor plan. It was the worst thing
ever and a total sham for those that want to focus and just get things done.
Requiring the people whole want quiet to put headphones on only adds insult to
injury.

Too bad quiet just isn't valued anymore..

~~~
mikestew
Sounds a lot like a place I was at for a bit. My observation was that the
noisy people killed productivity for the whole place. Not only because no one
else could focus enough to get work done, but also because the noisy ones
never really _did_ anything (yes, I checked commit logs). Passing cat video
links around, playing music through laptop speakers("your headphones broken,
bro?"), bro-style fist bumps because they put a sheen on a button, but no real
actual coding.

~~~
tixocloud
I see a lot of people entering and exiting and their usual reason is taking a
break. Emails about jokes and social activities get sent around the office
fairly frequently as well. I'm just wondering how do you draw the line between
allowing the employee freedom vs just clamping down on shenanigans.

~~~
mikestew
For coders, check commit logs and the like. They can email cat video links to
each other all day long for all I care, but if their last commit was last week
then we've got a problem. IOW, you don't cut down on the shenanigans, you make
sure the work is getting done. As it often turns out, if there's a lot of cat
video links there probably isn't a lot of work and vice versa.

Were I appointed to be king, if you're noisy then STFU, full stop, whether
you're getting your work done or not. Indoor voices, people, or take it
somewhere else.

------
shubb
In my open office, I currently code next to some project managers, who spend
all day on the phone negotiating.

This is a bit bad, but I just wear PPE Ear Defenders all day, on top of in ear
headphones. With both of these, I can't hear a thing.

The eerie quiet is great for short bursts of concentration, but it also means
I can turn my music up to a normal level without worrying about escaping noise
annoying my colleagues.

It looks very nerdy, and people need to email me or wave if they want
something (which cuts down interruptions a lot). I take them off about half
the time so as to be social, which I guess is like leaving an office door
open.

Sort of sad it's necessary though. Hope this helps people with a similar
situation.

Ear defenders, buy good ones -> [http://goo.gl/NlgnPv](http://goo.gl/NlgnPv)

~~~
amag
Unfortunately for me it's not that simple since I'm also very distracted by
visual noise. Someone who passes by in my peripheral view can bring me out of
flow as will the feeling of having someone behind my back do.

I recently was fortunate enough to have my own office for a while and I
haven't been as productive since...well, since last time I had my own office
some five years back. It's an awesome feeling to enter flow almost as you
enter your room...

It's interesting to think back at my 15+ years long career and realize that
the times when I've been most productive coincides with the times I've had my
own office.

~~~
pmjordan
I'm the same. Can you put some pot plants to the left and right behind your
screen? (more socially acceptable than other barriers) Request a second or
larger monitor for your work? You can argue that it'll improve your
productivity; you don't have to tell them that's because it'll block out your
FOV, not because you actually want to display stuff on it…

Another thing that would help is moving to a different desk, but I'm guessing
that might be a bit more difficult to negotiate.

(These days I'm self employed and work from home but that's what I did when I
worked in an open-plan office. Also, if you can, come in to work before
everyone else, while it's still very quiet. Usually more acceptable than
coming in later than everyone else and staying later.)

~~~
amag
Thanks for the tips.

The sad thing is that even if you look at it economically it doesn't make
sense. Say that in order for each employee to have their own office you need
10m2 extra space per employee. Where I live, that would amount to ~2.5% of the
employees salary, i.e. if a private office makes your emplyees more than 2.5%
more productive you're profiting from private offices. In my experience my
productivity boost when working in a private office amounts to maybe as much
as 25% or more.

~~~
pmjordan
Oh, definitely. But then there are plenty of other ways of increasing
programmer productivity which don't look like busywork so non-programmer
managers won't have them. I guess try to get out of employment situations like
that...

------
wldlyinaccurate
I work in an open office with no dividers. Unfortunately for me I don't have
selective hearing, so 95% of the time I'm trying to drown out the buzz by
wearing over-ear headphones (usually with no music playing). I also spend a
_lot_ of time fending off product managers and testers who just refuse to
acknowledge the headphone rule and constantly bug me about trivial things that
can be put in an email or an IRC message.

The other 5% of the time is great - as other people have already mentioned,
it's really easy to listen in to conversations and get an idea of what
everybody is up to.

~~~
GrinningFool

        work in an open office with no dividers. 
        Unfortunately for me I don't have selective
        hearing, so 95% of the time I'm trying to
        drown out the buzz by wearing over-ear
        headphones (usually with no music playing)
    

My wife has the same problem (no selective hearing). And while I understood it
intellectually, it never really made sense. Of course you can focus your
hearing, you just have to try... never said that, but that was my thought.

Then recently, an odd combination if sinus infection, cold, and related ear
troubles inflicted this on me. I was attending a company/community even with
several hundred attendees. Quite suddenly, it was like _every_ conversation in
the common area was happening right next to me. It didn't matter how close or
far, or how loud - it was all happening at once, and I while I could still
hear the person I was talking to, I could no longer distinguish what they were
saying as there were too many other conversations that my brain was trying to
interpret. This went on for about two hours, then my ears popped, and things
were roughly back to normal.

Ho-ly crap. Even with that experience, I find it difficult to fathom living
with that nonstop - I don't know how you do it without going insane,
particularly if you have to work in an open office.

TL;DR: I finally understand the experience of lacking selective hearing, and
sympathize. While hoping it never, ever happens to me again.

~~~
Kluny
"I don't know how you do it without going insane, particularly if you have to
work in an open office."

You end up tuning out everything, and can't have a conversation in a noisy
area.

------
abalone
Cornell did a study of open-plan offices for software engineering awhile back.
It's well worth a read if you're interested in this subject.

It's definitely not anti-open. They basically found that closed offices
benefit individual engineers the most while open plans benefit the team.
Interestingly, while noting the need for concentration, they note a whole
bunch of ulterior careerist motives for developers wanting to work in private.

They found that the nature of communication was markedly different in each
environment. Open was not only more frequent and immediate, it raised the bar
for what was considered a frequent amount of team interaction, suggesting
greater knowledge-share. The conversations were also shorter and subject to
"cues" about whether it was a good time to interrupt someone. And the stronger
social bonds encouraged more people to ask for help and bounce crazy ideas
around.

They do note that it comes at the cost of distractions, and in the end they
call for a balance.

[http://iwsp.human.cornell.edu/file_uploads/office_ex2_123825...](http://iwsp.human.cornell.edu/file_uploads/office_ex2_1238259706.pdf)

------
city41
I currently work in an open office and I really hate it. I've previously had
jobs with cubicles and one job where everyone got their own full fledged
office. Of the three, I actually think cubicles are the best.

Everyone having their own private office was detrimental in the opposite way.
Everyone was closed off and really inaccessible. Knocking on someone's door
felt invasive and wrong, so people would avoid doing it.

Cubicles give everyone privacy and space, but not so much that it stops
collaboration dead. The impediment to interruptions seems to be at just the
right level.

I'm also interested in offices that have open collaborative spaces combined
with private offices. I've never had that and I think it could be a good
compromise too.

~~~
masklinn
An other nice option is small shared offices, 2-6 people in a room, ideally
working on related things (not necessarily together). Avoids the noise and
discomfort of an open office, but also avoids the complete isolation and
frustration of singles.

------
rhizome
How many more times is this "open plan is the best!" "open plan is terrible!"
cycle going to continue to receive your clicks? This has been an ongoing topic
literally _all year_! These sites are playing the community like a piano, and
the comment threads all read exactly the same: anecdotes.

I'm guilty of participating, too, but no more. My assumption will now be that
any article with a headline that presents an absolute for a subject that is a
matter of preference is garbage. It's all part of growing up, I guess.

~~~
Segmentation
It's an everlasting controversial subject. Perfect material for page views and
ad revenue.

~~~
rhizome
It's not controversial that some people like it and some people don't. Eliding
this fact means the writers are doing their job in bad faith.

------
resu_nimda
I sit in an office with desks with half-height dividers. I enjoy it. A while
ago our company expanded into another floor, and my product's team was moved
there (dev, QA, product, services, support). Previously the layout was
arranged more by department than product.

Pretty much everyone on the team loves it, and has felt a major boost in
productivity and team cohesion, as virtually anyone you might need is "right
there" in the room with you, and you can tune in to some of the chatter for an
organic understanding of what everyone's up to. I imagine if everyone were in
offices it would feel dead and empty, and totally kill the team spirit.

I think the only thing we're missing is more ad-hoc space - more conference
rooms for breakout groups and individuals seeking temporary escape from the
floor.

~~~
Karunamon
Given that environment, what do you do when you're trying to concentrate on a
particularly challenging issue and you need to tune out the chatter and what
others are doing?

~~~
mahyarm
I think if you have a good culture around open offices, then it's a lot
better. If you have a bunch of people who have loud conversations without
moving it to a meeting room, interrupt you constantly, don't respect the
headphone rule, micromange and shoulder surf vs. treat it as the quiet library
environment it should be then it can pretty bad.

~~~
pbreit
Why should people have to worry about all gross lame situations? What is open
office delivering to overcome those limitations? A bit of serendipity?

~~~
mahyarm
Money, it's cheaper to do open offices, especially in a startup vs giving a
good chunk of people private offices or even shared offices.

------
maxk42
It may not be for everyone, but for people like me it really boosts
productivity. The last office I worked in was a massive open-office in a
warehouse which sounds just miserable, but it was great. If I ever had a
question, I could just lean over and ask the person I had a question for. No
waiting for emails to bounce back and forth or for people to get back to their
IMs. If I needed to make a private phone call, I'd just walk out of the office
to do it. Plus, having people around me made it easier to focus on work
instead of fucking off on Hacker News or Facebook.

Now, as a self-employed individual I rent a seat in a shared open office to
maintain that focus. It's far too easy to turn on the TV or play a video game
or linger on the phone with a friend when I'm working from home. In a
different setting -- with people around: all focused on work -- it's much
easier to maintain a focus on work and getting done what's important.

~~~
tixocloud
Just to play devil's advocate, your productivity might have gone up but what
about the people that you've been directing your questions to? They might have
been disturbed and thus, their productivity might have gone down. I get asked
a lot of questions which always breaks my train of thought.

I'm not advocating for an open office or a closed office but I do appreciate
something balanced. People around me are always collaborating and discussing a
great number of things which really makes me lose my focus. I usually come in
early when it's really quiet and no one's in yet to get things done. After
that, headphones on but even then, I miss the sound of silence rather than
drowning out noise with more noise.

~~~
maxk42
Absolutely valid point. But I think most of us just put on headphones if we
wanted to be left alone. And in those cases, I'd absolutely email someone
instead of interrupting them -- unless it was both important and urgent.

~~~
rschmitty
Small or urgent is the same level of distraction
[http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-
interrupt-...](http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a-
programmer)

------
rubiquity
It's all about balance. Open offices work for certain occupations but not for
others. When it comes to software development I think you need a combination
of open office and cube farm. The best balance I've found is open office with
all communication happening in a place it can be persisted (Campfire, HipChat,
etc.) for others to see and benefit from. Occasionally the entire team can
break into talking in the open office area but this should only be done if the
entire team is participating. If the entire team isn't participating then
communication should be handled in a chat (preferably) or in a conference
room.

If you're trying to build software in an open office where people are
constantly talking then I'm sorry, good work will not get done. Decisions to
change your office layout should be in the interest of boosting communication,
team cohesion and productivity. Cubicles are too restrictive, completely open
is too distracting.

~~~
mindcrime
_When it comes to software development I think you need a combination of open
office and cube farm._

And I think that developers should be in private offices, with doors. However,
I will add that I think that a good environment _also_ features plenty of open
spaces, conference rooms, breakout areas, etc., where group can coalesce on an
ad-hoc / temporary basis, on those occasions when people benefit from the
high-bandwidth, face-to-face communication.

~~~
EternalLight
Personally I want to be in an open office with the team I'm currently working
with, an no one else. While IM works, it's a lot less band with in IM and you
miss out on a number more spontaneous design discussions. A good team will not
interrupt you with questions they could just as easily goggled.

On the other hand, I hate talk from other teams or projects. The mostly
unrelated and in worst case interesting (thus 10 times as effective in
distracting me.). So the current open office plan with 6-7 teams in an open
area is occasionally really annoying.

------
munificent
"That’s what work is: It is a vacillation between collaboration and solitary
exploration."

It's weird that the author notes that, but then proposes that the solution to
focusing on one half of the vacillation is to just focus on the other half
instead. Surely the ideal is to support _both_.

If I could I would run an experiment like this:

1\. Have a large number of small, quiet office-like spaces. 2\. Have a big
open plan area. 3\. Have a fixed schedule during the day where for a certain
number of hours, everyone is required to be in the open plan area.

You can still hack there if you want, but you're expected to be there, and you
understand that during that time you're free to interrupt and be interrupted.

The reason for making the open space mandatory is so that people actually go
there. If it's optional, then it looks like people only go to the open spaces
to not do "real" work. Since no one wants to be seen slacking, the open space
just ends up unused.

~~~
darkarmani
> The reason for making the open space mandatory is so that people actually go
> there.

Doesn't that tell you something? Why force people to work in a less productive
way?

~~~
billmalarky
Perhaps there are greater long-term gains from some collaboration that don't
seem as obvious as the immediate gains from "cranking away" in an office
alone.

------
andrewcooke
peopleware was written 27 years ago. why on earth is this still news?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopleware:_Productive_Projects...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopleware:_Productive_Projects_and_Teams)

------
ChristianMarks
On my first day on one job, my managers invited me to lunch. I thanked one for
assigning me a desk next to a corner in their open office. The other
supervisor could not resist chiming in that they could move people around at
will. The other manager averted his eyes. I never expressed gratitude for my
working conditions again.

Headphones would be too distracting for me--however I am developing tinnitus,
which has become a blessing in disguise. Although I find it difficult to
listen to music now, I would rather listen to the ringing in my ears than
office chatter.

------
Segmentation
Something not brought up often: smell.

I don't work in an open office, but I wonder what it _smells_ like. When in
closed meetings or an elevator I can keenly smell people, sometimes good
(women's fragrance) but most of the time distracting (perfume, odor). I'd hate
to be surrounded by distracting smells all the time.

This can be fixed with proper ventilation (and proper hygiene let's hope), but
ventilation can be hard to come by in the non-summer months. (without freezing
everyone out)

------
nlh
This is great - in theory. Let me bring up something which the article brings
up right away but none of the comments seem to discuss.

Look at it from the startup's side of things: The ideal office that we'd all
love to work in - that perfect 4-6 person bullpen with private offices
surrounding (x number of 4-6 person teams), is _expensive_. Very few companies
can afford a build-out like this until much much later in company-life.

If we're talking about an Apple or Google, fine - let's have the debate. But
for a vast majority of early-stage startups, this simply isn't a viable
discussion to have. Office space is very limited in many parts of the big tech
hubs, and often it's a matter of just getting an affordable space in the first
place, much less being able to build out the perfect working environment. And
the fact of the matter is, most spaces are open and filled with $200 IKEA
tables because that's all the company can afford.

So I'm not sure what the answer is. On the one hand, you can say "well, budget
more for office space", but we all know it's not that easy. It's not a small
expense -- big buildouts for private offices costs tens of thousands of
dollars (or more), precious capital for a small business.

~~~
RHSeeger
> The ideal office that we'd all love to work in - that perfect 4-6 person
> bullpen with private offices surrounding

Not all of us. My (and I assume many others) ideal office is a room with a
door, with my computer hooked up to 2-3 monitors and a bunch of other things I
find useful to my work. Moving out of the open space to a side room... losing
my monitors, taking the time to setup my keyboard and mouse, etc. That is far
from ideal for me.

------
DanBC
For people working in open plan offices or cubicles: Would small hoods help?
(Especially if combined with headphones / earplugs?)

Here's an example. (Ignore the desk, which looks a bit fragile. I'm just
asking about the hood.) [http://www.designboom.com/design/gamfratesi-the-
rewrite-desk...](http://www.designboom.com/design/gamfratesi-the-rewrite-
desk/)

~~~
kps
No, it doesn't address peripheral vision or noise.

------
awjr
It's a hard one to solve. In the company I work in I've sat in 3 different
places as teams expanded. Given the density of employees you can achieve in an
open plan office vs individual offices, it is hard to justify to an employer.

However one thing we do is, that it is perfectly within your right to work
from home if you feel you have enough to get on with and people do this often.

As to headphones, we have golden rule, if they are on, the building better be
on fire if you disturb somebody. Not quite a sackable offence but damn close.
:)

I've also found that sites like www.coffitivity.com offer a 'break' from the
music. They can kill any background conversation distraction. ANY. Investigate
white noise.

As to socialising, jokey things still get passed around. We're encouraged to
use IM, and we also go in groups to the coffee machine which is kept in a
cafeteria area, away from workers where you can chat freely and loudly.

I personally hate open plan offices, but in my 20+ years of working, I've only
worked in an office once and that still had 4 people in there because they
could squeeze that number into it.

~~~
afterburner
"As to headphones, we have golden rule, if they are on..."

Man I hope that's not the rule here, because when I have headphones on it's to
wake me up, not keep the world out; I really don't care if someone disturbs
me. Maybe I need an additional indicator...

(open plan office, I like it fine, clearly some here would like more seclusion
though)

------
digisth
The real lesson is that there is no silver bullet. No matter what {office
layout, technology} you choose, there's going to be upsides and downsides.
There's no one-size-fits-all solution. We had a backlash against separate
offices for a reason, and we're having the same sort of backlash now (and will
likely have plenty more in the future.)

It's the price paid for what often seems like blind fad-following; rather than
analyzing whether X really makes sense given the attributes of the
organization (people/culture, type of work, department, etc.), it's adopted,
used, and eventually, revolted against. A more thoughtful, situation-specific
analysis might produce better results.

------
zackbloom
I dig working in an open office. I see my work as very collaborative, so I
wouldn't want to be in an environment where I was siloed off. That being said,
headphones are critical.

~~~
mindcrime
_headphones are critical._

But headphones can't replace _quiet_. They can just replace one source of
noise with another. And they aren't necessarily comfortable to wear for
extended periods of time anyway.

Headphones _help_ mitigate the grotesque and evil nature of "open plan"
offices, but they are no panacea.

------
pbreit
This is such a big, important topic that surely not all tech firms have
settled on the "open plan" which intuitively and in my experience is awful.

I think the breakthrough will come when workplace interiors get much more
modular and flexible. I'm envisioning different teams getting to choose
(within reason) what types of setups they would like from enclosed offices to
bullpens to cubes to open desks.

And I can even see planned re-arrangements every 6 months or so to eliminate
the moss.

------
retrogradeorbit
I think the reason this persists is because everyone is doing it. Thus your
open-plan, inefficient office is only competing with other equally open-plan,
inefficient offices. We are all in a less-productive equilibrium together.

This of course gives those willing to make offices for everyone (like, say,
Fog Creek) a competitive advantage. But your average corporate manager doesn't
care about that. They still get their office and get paid.

~~~
nerfhammer
The opportunity costs from an open plan office are invisible and difficult if
at all possible to quantify, but the savings from cramming twice as many
people into the same space are very real and tangible.

------
pathy
Open office schemes has been around awhile. The earliest research that, I know
about, into them is by Allen & Gerstberger from 1973 [0]

In essence they found that performance was roughly the same as before but the
employees preferred the new arrangement and that communication was improved.

Here is part of a summary of the article, made when revising for an exam:

> "The most important and most obvious conclusion that this paper found is
> that the non-territorial idea works. It not only reduces facilities costs by
> eliminating the need for rearranging walls, air ducts, etc. every time an
> area is re-organized, but it also allows for the allocation of space based
> upon an expected population density at any point in time. More important
> than the cost savings, however, is the fact that people find it comfortable
> to work in."

The open plan arrangement is not only to benefit the employees, which it may
or may not do, but to reduce costs. Office space isn't exactly cheap in many
locations.

[0]
[http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/1866/SWP-0653-...](http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/1866/SWP-0653-45078245.pdf?sequence=1)

------
RandallBrown
Open office layouts are bad for some employees and some people's productivity.

Having a private office is bad for some employees and some people's
productivity.

I went from an open office that I loved to having my own office, which I hate.

I could write this same article saying the opposite things and it would be no
less correct.

I hate my office. In the almost 2 years I've been at my current company I feel
like less of a team member than I did in 2 months at my last job.

~~~
qqg3
For me I want to work in an open space, but have somewhere private and quiet I
can go hide and get down to business and focus.

------
grealish
I cannot stand the selfish arrogant thoughtless behavior shown by the few that
destroy the productivity of an open office. Your constant sniffing and playing
drums with your fingers is not respectful or mindful of others trying to work.

Has anyone thought about doing a study on the effects of people wearing
headphones all day to drown out these distractions? I mean ear infections and
hearing loss must surely be long term side effects.

End rant.

~~~
retrogradeorbit
Haha. You just reminded me of when I worked in an open plan office with a
developer who would continuously, rapidly click his left mouse button on text
as he read it. The day was a constant click-click-click-click-click-click-
click. Like double click speed but hundreds in a row, and for long periods
sprinkled throughout the day. It was one of the most infuriating things I've
ever experienced.

------
tomphoolery
My company does the open-office thing really well. The building we're in used
to basically be all offices so everyone has an "office", but most of us share
a room with someone else. This leads to "just enough" exposure, for me, to
other people while still leaving me time to get work done. Rarely are people
coming into my office to talk about things that don't pertain to me. When that
does happen, I happily put on headphones. There's also a large common area
with couches and bean bag chairs you can sit on, if you want a larger place to
work, and we have a whole wall of ideapaint if we need to do a big meeting of
some kind.

This is in sharp contrast to my last job, a fully open office where it was
pretty much one gigantic room and everyone was LOUDLY talking over one
another. Pretty much had to have the headphones on the whole day just so
people wouldn't bother me. I'd even have them on without playing music just to
signal to people not to come around...that's how annoying it was. It was truly
interruption-driven development at that place.

------
briandear
The best office layout ever is the one that allows me to works from home.

~~~
oelmekki
I came here to say exactly that.

If you want privacy and focus, nothing is better than remote work.

In my current company, I work from home and go to the central open space
something like once in a month or couple month. My productivity is way lower
in open space, but I get to know my coworkers and share thoughts way easier
(those thoughts being wild ideas, because written asynchronous language is
always better to make very specific suggestions).

In my previous company, we were working remotely too, and twice a year, we
were joining together in a villa next the sea. Those sessions were
unambiguously called "team building", and it did a very good job at that. We
were chatting a lot, laughing, and at evening, we were playing videogames
together or having a beer in a bar, and we were becoming closer that way. I
think this is very good to raise solidarity and friendship between coworkers.
And once at home, we got the real job done.

------
mikecaron
We have offices for every developer, if they want one. We also have an open
space. I used to have an office (still do, it's just empty now). I work in the
open space, but it's not typical. There's only two of us that work in this
open area, so it's very quiet as we're both developers. I think it's an
unusual setup, but being more extraverted, I feel less lonely as I can see
when people are going to the lunch room, I can participate in conversations
around the pool table, etc. If there were more than 3 people in this area, I'd
head back to my office, but for now, it's a great environment. I also have to
mention that our open area isn't very large, and the desks are tripods (three
workstations to a pod); again, my pod is just me. I'm also surrounded by
windows and sunlight, where as my office only had one window.

Not complaining, just sharing a different situation.

------
mcv
I like working in the same room as the rest of my team. It means I can ask
them questions, they can ask me, we can quickly discuss little things without
getting out of our chair.

I can imagine private office might be preferable if you really work on your
own. But I work in a team, and I prefer working in the same room as them.

Though the stories about noise suggest that some people are sharing a room
with a hundred people, and that's just ridiculous. 6, 12, or even 20
programmers in a room don't make a lot of noise. The occasional question or
discussion really isn't that distracting (though nerf-gun battles certainly
are).

Just keep it sane. Put people in a room with the people they need to be in a
room with. Don't make them hide from their team. Don't put them in a crowd of
noisy strangers.

There's good and bad ways to do this.

------
c4mden
Never mind the inherent dangers of open lines-of-sight:
[http://www.theonion.com/articles/open-floor-plan-
increases-o...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/open-floor-plan-increases-
office-shooters-producti,34597/)

------
startupstella
There is no one size fits all solution...for me personally, I require a mix of
social and private time to maximize my productivity. Working from home half
the time, and working in the other half tends to be best...For those who want
to talk/meet, knowing I'm only there at certain makes them more likely to
think twice about prioritizing meeting time. Also, the quiet of home and lack
of distractions (no giggling coworkers or visitors to the office) leads to the
best writing/thinking.

You just have to know how you work best, and hope your company can support it.
If you're a startup, be flexible about optimizing workers' time...

------
dba7dba
I so agree with the author.

Autodesk used to give glassed off individual OFFICE to EVERY single employee,
no matter how junior. This was in 1996 or 1997. I remember being very envious.

Do they still do that?

One commenter on the article on fastcompany.com left a condescending remark
how the writer of the article does not need to collaborate (for simply writing
an article) with others while the commenter (the almighty coder) needs to
collaborate with other coders, hence open layout is good.

Well in office when 2 or 3 coders are 'collaborating' in middle of open
office, everyone ELSE (including other coders) in the space not working on the
specific task is being interrupted.

Open space layout is not good.

------
munimkazia
It's been one year since I joined my current employer, and we work in a big
open floor. There are around 30 people in this big room, and its very
distracting and we have no privacy. It is weird as someone who is setting next
to me or walking by can just peep and see what I am doing and read my IMs.
Since this is my first big office, it has been terribly distracting and has
really crashed my productivity. But then again, this is a big company, and
office space is pricey. I don't expect them to give us all more personal space
of our own.

------
steven2012
During my career, I went from office to cubes, to office and now open layout.
I thought I would hate the open layout, but actually I like it a lot. I'm not
easily distracted, so it's convenient being able to ask questions directly
without having to walk around or knock on a door.

The other thing I enjoy that I didn't expect was the social aspect, where I
can chat with everyone in the room before work starts in earnest in the
morning, or after 6-ish when we're all ready to leave for home anyway.

------
msluyter
One trick I've recently adopted: I use this site:

[http://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php](http://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php)

In particular, the "babble" generator. The babble blends with actual
conversations so you can no longer distinguish spoken words and reduces what
would otherwise be attention grabbing conversations a to coffee shop level
din.

~~~
jw_
I often resort to this too, since I often find actual music distracting
("whoops, just spent 30 minutes listening to the music instead of
programming...").

The sources I generally use are rain.simplynoise.com and a "nature sounds"
playlist on Songza. The latter sometimes requires you to skip "Songs of the
Whaaale" tracks you might hear in a crappy crystal-stuffed gift shop, but it's
generally fine.

------
scotty79
Team sized offices for the win. Team office doesn't have to have a door, but
it should have small room with door very close for phone calls and longer (or
involving more than two people) face to face chats. Short two person chats are
initiated by one person getting of his ass, comming to the other persons
computer and talking quietly.

------
pnathan
Well, I write this from a quiet corner I escaped to from my open office area
so I could have a sustained focus time.

I've worked in open office, half-cube, full cube, shared office, and sole
office. Of all of those, sole office was best for concentration and shared
office was best for collaboration.

------
aaron695
Part 1 certainly is very strawperson in not addressing the real issue, cost.

Everyone knows open offices are worse but they are also far cheaper, if
productivity is down 15% but TCO of the office space saves more then that's
ok.

Labour is a commodity, it has value but so do many other factors.

Part 2 perhaps will talk on this issue.

------
pdfcollect
In open offices, these are the things that are problematic (when it happens
from the person who is sitting next to me):

\- cell phones \- chats \- social networking \- random web surfing

(when my neighbor does it)

Maybe I'm not just concentrating enough at work. But perhaps there is a way to
solve these problems?

------
leerodgers
I think it all comes down to the employees and the culture. Some people thrive
in these open environments and some down. For large companies a mix probably
works but if you are a small shop might as well do what works for you.

------
LordHumungous
At my office I always have someone looking over my shoulder, and to be honest,
it keeps me on task. At my last job I had my own space and there were days
when I just decided, "welp, not gonna do any work today."

------
hackula1
I share a small office with 1 other dev. This is the absolute max I can handle
while coding. I am in meetings a good chunk of the day. I really don't need to
be sitting next to 20 coworkers the rest of the time.

------
theklub
I think the amount of time spent talking about this topic is bad for
employees, bosses and productivity. Its been beaten to death and the truth is
everyone is different so there is no ONE solution.

------
jimmytidey
I've worked in all kinds of set ups, and I've never worked anywhere where
everyone liked it. One problem with designing an office is having a diverse
bunch of people like the same space.

------
msoad
It sucks when you want to considerate and someone flies a RC helicopter!

~~~
lightbritefight
Sounds like it sucks for them when I decide to play King Kong and smack it
from the air.

------
erobbins
I miss having an office.

I also miss having 2 30" monitors in my office.

Who would have ever thought that working conditions for engineers would be
more comfortable in florida than the bay area? Not me, and boy was I wrong.

------
Eye_of_Mordor
I think people should have a choice. Can't stand a quiet office and much
prefer it if other people have music playing. Other people can't work with
noise. Everyone's different.

------
voidlogic
Many good points, but this doesn't touch of the issues of sickdays, lost
productivity and how illness burns though open and traditional offices at very
different rates.

------
shmerl
Open office layouts always remind me of factories and conveyors. I don't like
these short dividers as well, they aren't conductive for productivity at all.

------
cdmckay
I used to work in an open office and it was super annoying. People would throw
stuff around the office and you could hear everything that was going on...

------
ajasmin
Forget these OpenOffice layouts. I think LaTeX is more flexible... oh wait,
never mind.

------
sTevo-In-VA
I was in an open office for ten years and I can verify every thing that Jason
wrote.

------
washedup
Different types of people thrive in different types of environments.

~~~
marcosdumay
And the same kinds of people thrive in different types of environments at
different times. It's almos like we need both.

------
ffrryuu
Bad for health and lifespan too.

------
vacri
An alternate story in favour of open-office layouts. Here in Aus, the
Department of Human Services (DoHS, has had many previous names) is
responsible for welfare. The old offices were an arrangement with a counter -
staff on one side, clients on the other. Aggressive incidents rose and the
counters ended up having old-school bank bulletproof windows installed.

Some bright spark changed that - got rid of the counters, and made the offices
all open-office plan. You wait off to the side, and when it's your turn for
whatever, someone comes and fetches you to their desk in the open-office plan
with some space between desks. Instead of shouting your personal issues across
a counter, you could discuss it in a normal tone, and if it was private, you
could be quieter or more subtle about the topic. Aggressive incidents dropped
off a cliff - and there was much less of an 'us-versus-the-gummint' mentality
seeded by the demarcation line of a [fortified] counter.

So in this particular use-case, an open-office layout was clearly superior for
employees, bosses, productivity, and clients.

~~~
jpatokal
As an occasional DHS client, I partly agree, but there's one crucial thing
they severely fucked up in the new layout: the "client" has _no idea_ when
"someone" will come fetch them. So you get an intensely frustrated mob of
people waiting off to the side, wondering if they'll be stuck there for 10
minutes or three hours, and straining to hear when every few minutes one of
the geriatric case workers shuffle over and mumbles horrible mispronunciations
of random last names. Which means you can't work, can't listen to music or
concentrate on anything, really, just sit on the edge of your seat.

Compare with the normal take-a-number bank queue system, when you have a
fairly good idea of how long it will take to go from "now serving 123" to
"your queue number is 567".

~~~
jkovacs
These are not exclusive, you can have both. In fact, last time I had to visit
an administrative office they had an open office for the employee workspaces
with numbered desks and a traditional waiting area with a take-a-number queue
system (well, actually an online appointment booking system) that directs to
you a specific desk if it's your turn.

------
archonjobs
The best tradeoff I've found is 1\. Open-office layout two (specified) days a
week; perfect for collaboration and meetings. 2\. People work from home three
days a week; perfect for those coding marathons.

Obviously you can still code in an open-office and you can still collaborate
working from home, but it's sub-optimal. With the setup above, you're in the
right environment for the right type of work most of the time, and employees
love it.

Lots more about this here:
[http://www.archonsystems.com/devblog/2013/09/19/open-
offices...](http://www.archonsystems.com/devblog/2013/09/19/open-offices-
private-offices-heres-a-third-option/)

------
dschiptsov
This is also not very interesting question. It was recognized ages ago that
mechanical, manual labor, such as assembly line or McDonald's , should be
organized in an open-space, while thinkers must have their private comfort
zones (which is very expensive) and occasionally meet in a small groups to
share ideas.

The balance is quite subtle, as usual. So-called brain-storming sessions
(which in the language of normal people is called a discussion group) could be
very effective (only if participants have something to be stormed) while
meeting of committees of idiots is always a disaster. The first activity is
centered around subjects and goals, while the second is dedicated to the
action itself and a sense of self-importance.

In other words, for those who think of software development as an assembly
line (which is very wrong) mass-production best practices are quite
appropriate, while others, who think of it as a process of writing poetry, the
best practices appropriate for a writers and thinkers should be considered.

Unfortunately, idiots dominate the world.

------
codegeek
He is missing the point of Open office plans. Frankly, the blog post comes off
as a little entitled when he says "we all deserve office of our own"
(paraphrasing). Really ? How about a bed to nap while we are at it (well ok
google has the nap pods). The point of open office plan is to _try_ and
encourage a culture of equality (in my opinion). I love open office plan
because I could be sitting next to a college graduate and an executive
director at the same time. Imagine the level of access you have if you have
the balls to actually utilize it. With closed doors, even if the person inside
is welcoming, it just creates a senseless fear of rejection.

All this point about not being able to focus and getting disturbed all the
time is hardly an issue. Most co-workers are respectful of your time whether
they are in open office or closed office. The ones that are not respectful
will bother you regardless of where you sit. Behind closed door ? No problem,
I will give this guy an annoying phone call.

Now is there a binary answer to this ? Of course not. But claiming that Open
office plans are completely useless is stretching it a little too far.

~~~
lewaldman
I heartdly disagree... And Joel also :P

"Here's the simple algebra. Let's say (as the evidence seems to suggest) that
if we interrupt a programmer, even for a minute, we're really blowing away 15
minutes of productivity. For this example, lets put two programmers, Jeff and
Mutt, in open cubicles next to each other in a standard Dilbert veal-fattening
farm. Mutt can't remember the name of the Unicode version of the strcpy
function. He could look it up, which takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff,
which takes 15 seconds. Since he's sitting right next to Jeff, he asks Jeff.
Jeff gets distracted and loses 15 minutes of productivity (to save Mutt 15
seconds).

Now let's move them into separate offices with walls and doors. Now when Mutt
can't remember the name of that function, he could look it up, which still
takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which now takes 45 seconds and
involves standing up (not an easy task given the average physical fitness of
programmers!). So he looks it up. So now Mutt loses 30 seconds of
productivity, but we save 15 minutes for Jeff. Ahhh!"

From here:
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html)

~~~
codegeek
certainly. I am sure there are many points against open office plans. All I am
saying that there is no binary or "my way or the highway" kind of solution to
this. It has to be balanced. You just should not dismiss open office
completely. My 2 cents.

