
"Silence is for the weak" - pbiggar
http://blog.circleci.com/silence-is-for-the-weak/
======
arohner
[Disclaimer: I'm cofounders with OP]

One other thing to note is that office space, while expensive, is much cheaper
than your developers. You can easily get 10-20% more productivity with a
better working environment.

Also, that "collaboration" that people value? None of that is getting written
down. Circle's team is already half remote, so placing a strong emphasis on
'library voices' means more communication happens over hipchat and email. More
things get written down, and the remote employees are able to collaborate
more, and there's a written record of "oh yeah, on Friday 2013/01/03, Paul and
Allen thought it was a good idea to try X.

~~~
hamburglar
Is it true that Microsoft is doing two devs per office these days? I just
thought back on all the places I sat at Microsoft and out of 9 different
offices (ok, two were cubicles), I never shared once. They do make you move
around a lot, obviously.

~~~
pbiggar
I was only in one building (maybe building 39, probably 6 years ago) and every
office I saw had 2 people. My bad! I'm also generalizing about Google - I only
saw building 43.

~~~
rg
Classic Microsoft in its high-productivity period was strictly private offices
for everyone, solid doors and almost all with outside windows, soundproofed so
each office could have its own music without requiring headphones, with
deskspace and network connections in each office for several computers and
seating for at least three people in each office so that people could work
together privately when they wanted to. If that standard has been eroded in
recent years, then we might understand why MS is now relatively unproductive.

------
greenyoda
" _It’s not like the industry is not aware of the problem. Peopleware–the
bible of managing engineering teams–discussed this over a decade ago._ "

 _Peopleware_ was first published in 1987, almost _three_ decades ago.[1] It's
amazing how poorly our industry learns from the lessons of its past.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopleware:_Productive_Project...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopleware:_Productive_Projects_and_Teams#Editions)

------
001sky
_Sometimes management prioritizes the open plan aesthetic above enabling
concentration. One office had hardwood floors which allowed every conversation
to bounce around the entire floor: the suggestion of carpeting was rejected
because it would ruin the look of the office. In another, management felt
different teams–working on completely separate projects–could collaborate if
they overheard each others’ conversations. They even planned to pipe in music
to raise the decibel level high enough so that it would instigate conversation
between distracted teams!_

This is priceless.

------
SheepSlapper
Anecdotal Devil's Advocate:

The most productive I've _ever_ been in a job was when I shared an open office
totaling around 500 square feet with 7 other devs. There was always something
blasting on the TV in that office. There were always people discussing/arguing
about one aspect of our software or another. Jenkins would blare a Lo Pan
sound clip[0] on build success/failure. And yet, with all this, I put out the
_best_ work of my career (both in terms of speed and quality).

I'm not sure why, but it probably has something to do with the atmosphere that
was _less_ like a business and _more_ like a place I'd like to go hang out
during the days. It didn't feel like work, which was oddly conducive to
getting things done. And if someone needed to concentrate and couldn't with
the noise, they could toss headphones on and drown out the nonsense (which
most of us did very, very rarely) or take a conference room.

Oh, and the private office I had a few years prior to this (incidentally about
the same square footage as the 8 man office) had the opposite effect on me.
Not great quality, no passion for the job, super quick burnout. For whatever
that's worth.

So what I'm saying is: If you need silence, cool. Seek it out. Do whatever it
takes to be the most productive you can[1]. But not everyone wants to live in
a sound vacuum, and some people thrive in the environments that are the polar
opposite of what you think is ideal. Some of us like collaborative spaces and
occasional distractions they bring :)

[0]
[http://www.realmofdarkness.net/pc/sb/movies/lopan](http://www.realmofdarkness.net/pc/sb/movies/lopan)
Our build failure was "Now this really pisses me off to no end!"

[1] How do I make things bold here? Because that's supposed to be bold. In
<blink> tags. font-size: 3em.

~~~
erbo
I guess the moral to take here is "people have different working styles, and
should seek out the conditions they need to do the best work they can in their
environment."

I do some of my better work with symphonic metal[1] blasting in my ears, but I
wouldn't impose that on anyone else. For one thing, it's an acquired taste.

[1] - See e.g.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjIlHWBAVo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjIlHWBAVo)

~~~
ultimatedelman
after experimenting with many different pandora stations, i've found that
trance music is awesome for programming. anything with lyrics or irregular
beats (like dubstep) is particularly distracting, even though outside of work
i like listening to pretty much anything.

this is often why when people ask me, "what music do you listen to?" my answer
is always, "for what?"

~~~
mercer
Indeed! I tend to play the more minimal techno (that is so popular here in the
Berlin club scene). Sometimes even some Prodigy.

------
joefiorini
All the jobs I've had since college have had an open workspace. Of those, 3
stand out as particularly pertinent to this topic.

At Job 1, a consulting company, we had an agreed upon culture of noise. We had
music playing loudly most of the time and about 30 developers collaborating on
different client projects. High vaulted ceilings definitely contributed to
noise. It was definitely chaotic, but we managed to remain productive
regardless.

At Job 2, my current job (also consulting), we have talked at great length
about keeping things quiet and respecting each other's concentration. We have
side-rooms if we need to collaborate, and use them frequently. We use chat to
ask each other questions rather than tapping on the shoulder (most of the
time). I feel extremely productive there (even more so than job 1) and while
offices might make tapping on the shoulder even less common, I feel a sense of
camaraderie there that I don't think I'd get if I was isolated with a closed
door.

Job 3 was by far the worst. It was a similar open space for the entire product
team. However, we never had much discussion about communication style or
noise, we just always said we don't like being interrupted. Looking back on
it, I think productivity was easier at jobs 1 & 2 because we had all agreed on
our culture, so we could find ways to work around it. Job 3 was hard because
we never knew what to expect. One day it could be quiet and easy to
concentrate, but the next it could be noisy and impossible to work in.

The lesson for me is that honesty and openness is most important. If people
speak up when they are having a hard time concentrating, then everyone can
work together to try to improve the situation. This assumes of course the team
respects each other enough to compromise; but if they don't you probably have
bigger problems.

------
spectre256
Great article overall, but it seems to be a bit dismissive of music for
productivity. It appears[1] the answer is a bit more nuanced: music is great
for getting "in the zone" where you are mostly using existing knowledge to
create something new. However, when you are really focusing on learning
something new and difficult, silence is best.

Anecdotally this seems to match up with my experiences coding. Sometimes I'm
more or less just churning out code, and music is great. If theres an ops
crisis, or I'm trying out something new, music can hurt rather than help.

Edit, forgot the article: [1] [https://medium.com/what-i-learned-
today/be3172896a0f](https://medium.com/what-i-learned-today/be3172896a0f)

~~~
hoka
Looks like you left your reference out by accident. Mind sharing?

~~~
spectre256
I did! Actually, it later got pasted into some code where I meant to paste
something else.

[https://medium.com/what-i-learned-
today/be3172896a0f](https://medium.com/what-i-learned-today/be3172896a0f)

------
mnem
I'd be interested in seeing studies that look at this sort of thing for a
variety of different software types. My completely-unsupported-by-evidence
hunch is that different lengths and types of software project do better or
worse in silent environments (although I also suspect that the largest
variance is from personal preference).

By way of personal anecdote, when I'm working in the games industry, coding
teams tend to be very small and very cross disciplined, and the smaller the
teams the more frequently code changes touch other devs because you're often
changing several systems across the engine throughout the day. In this
environment myself (and co-workers - I did ask :) find non-silent, "noisy"
environments work well. Incidental conversations and cursing are actually
quite good ways to add interesting fluff to the games as they are being
created, and cursing is a damn good barometer indicating that some of the APIs
for my code is rubbish to work with.

Conversely, I've worked on more traditional things where I'm deeply involved
in a rabbit hole of my own burrowing, and in those cases less noise does seem
to help. In those cases I'm general solving very narrow and specific problems,
and the APIs I'm offering to other devs (if there are APIs) are far more
formally defined.

However, I'm likely biased. Unless it's a very specific and very hard problem
I'm trying to solve, I like some level of background noise to keep the useless
parts of my brain occupied while the code bits do their stuff. The more boiler
plate the code, the louder I like the noise so that parts of my mind don't get
bored and drift off into more interesting thoughts.

------
SDMattG
"My favorite example of this sort of insanity is the office in which each time
any developer deployed to production, the speaker system automatically played
6 seconds of their favorite song across the entire office. You could actually
watch productivity go out the window as dozens of developers fell out of the
zone."

And yet, it's a developers dream to set something like that up. Or a nerf gun
that fires when you deploy. Hah!

Very self-harming...

------
erobbins
finally someone gets it? amazing! If I was a functional language guy I'd
apply.

~~~
corresation
Many software shops "get this", and it is a recurring discussion in this
field. There just isn't much to say about the offices that are designed right,
however, so you just don't hear about them.

And it's worth noting that there are competing forces at play in the design of
offices, and choices aren't always made with productivity as the primary
concern.

Many software shops are desperate to mirror the popular notion of how these
places operate: loud, boisterous bullpen type arrangements, whiteboards all
over with various contrived things on them, street lights flashing the current
iteration progress, desks littered with crazy toys and blimps and toy guns,
and various nerdly hijinx. It is, in every way, cargo culting, putting the
image of how it should work against the actual of how it works.

It _looks_ like what many outsiders think a software shop should look like,
all those geniuses doing their genius thing.

Impress investors. Impress potential hires. To the latter most will say "oh
no! That wouldn't impress me", but the truth is that real work in this field
occurs in the most boring looking way possible, so we all like to imagine that
a vibrant office will be an amazing new experience. But in the end we're still
wrangling code all day.

------
stephenitis
Noise can have a positive effect on creativity and cognition...
[http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665048](http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665048)

I for one am in favour of less intense scrutiny on measurable productivity and
concentration for a diverse startup. I think you want to place your engineers
in a quiet zone that is fine but to promote a blanket strategy of shhh zoning
the office. sounds like a prescription for some bad interpersonal conflicts
down the line.

------
rmason
Truth is there are really two distinct types of developers. I've seen guys who
needed music loud and almost the more distractions the better. You wonder how
they get anything done at all yet they're amazingly productive.

I had one developer who worked for me who stated that he needed music to
distract part of his brain so the other half could code.

I am the exact opposite, if there is any noise at all my productivity goes to
hell. Companies either need to offer people a choice or recruit for their
particular cultural fit.

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willjcksn
Great article ! It's too bad so many companies have open space rooms for
developers. Noise just creates a vicious circle : we're less concentrated,
working slower, have to work longer hours, get tired and so on. The worst is
when people in the same room aren't even working on the same project. I think
having at least separated rooms for each team working on a single task would
greatly improve developers' productivity.

------
JoeAltmaier
We at Sococo have the best of both worlds. We're mostly in physical isolation
(working at different offices or from home offices). Then we share virtual
spaces where we can meet, talk, form spontaneous groups. If you're heads-down
then just take your headset off, minimize the team app and work. Folks can see
this; courtesy demands they send a chat to ask for your attention.

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elwell
I love silence when I'm developing. I can start to get really frustrated with
(most) background noise.

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squeakyhinge
Oh, the irony. You're being weak if you don't speak up and demand silence.

------
abe_duarte
Interesting, I'm currently working at a startup where the Sonos is booming,
did a short survey over here and everyone thinks they are more productive with
the music on.

------
taboada
Given this, the hype about coworking spaces strikes me as particularly
misguided.

