
Science, Superstition, and Open Plan Offices - bratfarrar
http://dandreamsofcoding.com/2014/06/17/science-superstition-and-open-plan-offices/
======
7402
I interviewed with a company and during the "cultural fit" interview with the
VP of Engineering, I asked why they used an open-plan office. I mentioned that
there seemed to be a lot of concern in the literature and online about
developer productivity in such offices. He said he "wasn't familiar" with the
discussion, but he didn't think it was a problem.

I was offered a contract-to-hire situation, instead of the employment I was
seeking, and was explicitly told that the reason was because I seemed to be
concerned about the open office. So be careful about bringing up "science"
with people who aren't interested in it.

~~~
logfromblammo
I often wonder why companies offer contract-to-hire positions when so many
regular employees are at-will anyway. I am especially puzzled as to why a
company would offer it as an alternative to both full-time regular employment
and a fixed-term contract.

It seems that mixing the two removes all benefit to the worker while reserving
all benefits to the company. So why would anyone do it if they had a choice?

~~~
sethhochberg
I could also see this as the company giving the worker an easy out based on
the concerns they expressed about the open office - there is no worry about
waiting for the "right time" to quit if you're not happy with the new position
when the "right time" comes in the form of the end of a contract period before
full employment.

------
cliffcrosland
On the other hand, studies also show that "radical collocation" can increase
software development productivity. This study from the University of Michigan
claims that productivity was doubled when developers worked together in
specially designed "war rooms" that allowed for both spontaneous meetings and
moments of solitude:
[http://www.researchgate.net/publication/220879336_How_does_r...](http://www.researchgate.net/publication/220879336_How_does_radical_collocation_help_a_team_succeed/file/72e7e5242450ed5e28.pdf)

This quote summarizes the results well:

"Although the teammates were not looking forward to working in close quarters,
over time they realized the benefits of having people at hand, both for
coordination, problem solving and learning. They adapted to the distractions
of radical collocation, both by removing themselves to nearby hotelling areas
when they needed privacy, and by zoning out, made possible because of the
distance between people in the larger rooms."

It feels productive to enter a flow-like state for several hours debugging a
problem, but it's probably more productive if a teammate notices and provides
the solution in minutes. Nevertheless, stretches of uninterrupted focus are
often essential.

~~~
astalwick
I think that's one thing that gets missed in these discussions: software
development is different from, say, accounting or administration or whatever.

I get _huge_ value out of being right beside the people that can answer the
questions I have, and I know that they get value being near me. Putting walls
between people and enforcing no-interruption work inhibits communication and
makes it much easier to get blocked.

At our office, I actively encourage every new hire to _interrupt me_ and ask a
question when they get stuck. (I actually get kind of annoyed when they
don't). Lots of people, especially more junior devs, will sit down at a
problem and really get lost for a day trying to figure it all out themselves.
I'd way rather be interrupted for a 15 minute explanation of some bit of code
than have them lose a day.

~~~
pyre
> I get huge value out of being right beside the people that can answer the
> questions I have

As someone who -- in my workplace -- is more often than not on the receiving
end of questions or calls for help, I find it extremely distracting. There
have been entire days where I wasn't able to focus on my own work because
everyone else had questions to answer, or bugs that they needed help working
through. I can't fault them for asking for help, but I definitely get
frustrated at the situation, because sometimes at the end of the day I end up
feeling like I haven't accomplished anything.

~~~
astalwick
Oh, so do I (and I'm more often on the receiving end, too). No question,
there's a cost to being interrupted. Personally, I have to actively push back
against my own displeasure at being interrupted.

At the end of the day, though, the value those interruptions bring to the
project make them worthwhile. Problems are avoided before they become
problems. Knowledge is transferred without forcing someone to learn it from
the ground up themselves. Time is saved (maybe not my time, but project-time).

(Obviously, if you're consistently being interrupted with low-value, easy-to-
answer questions, that's a bit different... there comes a point where you say
"ok, spend a bit more time, and if you can't get it then I'll work more with
you")

------
frisco
I was really sympathetic to the distractions caused by an open plan office. I
saw the statistics that people get sick more often. I knew it would be
annoying to have it potentially be really loud (or have everyone need to be
quiet to keep it not loud). My company's new office is going to be open plan,
though. Why? Because an office costs about $15k to build. We're already
spending six figures on construction (ha ha biotech) and there was just no
economically reasonable way around an open plan office.

I think the real reason many offices are open plan now is simply that it's
much, much cheaper. The rest are kind of just-so stories, for or against.
Interior designers will come up with these justifications when prompted but
really I think it's that the people who actually get to make the decisions
look at the general contractor estimates and say, "okay open plan it is."

~~~
mabbo
Let's assume my office employs 100 people, at around $100,000 per year each.
If a $15k office would make us 10% more efficient, then it would pay for
itself in 18 months.

Open plan offices are penny-wise and pound-foolish.

~~~
frisco
That's a $1.5M investment up front. Maybe it will make you 10% more efficient,
but I have to look at all of the different things I could spend $1.5M on.
Hopefully there's something in there for a growing company with an expected
IRR of more than 10% over 18 months.

In parallel, how many months of runway do you have? I'm guessing it's not 18,
much less the 36+ you'd want to really see those benefits pay off even if it
were the most efficient use of the capital.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yet iF you want to save time then the only critical resource is your
employees. 10% is an extremely low estimate of the disruption open-plan
offices engender. In some cases they can completely disrupt some employees,
resulting in 0 or negative return.

------
gojomo
Maybe we need to re-brand the "open plan" to something else. "Open" is
something many tech businesses want to be, especially _internally_. So an
"open" layout helps people be "open" in other desirable ways, right?

Well, not really. It's an unfortunate decision-scrambling word-collision.

It deserve a name that's still descriptive, but of a loud, crowded place where
it's hard to get work done. "Stadium plan"? "Nursery plan"? "Transit hall
plan"?

~~~
wmeredith
Exposed office plan. Cheap office plan.

I really like Cheap Office plan actually. For all the ra-ra Kumbayah BS around
open office plans, the fact that they are cheaper in the short run is why
Cheap Office PLans (tm) are popular with management.

~~~
gojomo
Hmm. Unfortunately 'cheap' also has some positive connotations in business –
and it doesn't _necessarily_ imply productivity-damaging. "It's both 'cheap'
and 'open'? Sign us up!"

But breaking down 'cheap' into more-explicit descriptions of missing-amenities
could work. The "infantry barracks plan". The "shantytown plan". The "disaster
shelter plan". The "resettlement camp plan". The "soup kitchen plan".

------
skizm
I work in an open office environment and I spend a lot of my day positioning
myself so that I'm not in direct line of sight with anyone else's eyes. I hate
that I can't ponder to myself without risk of accidentally making eye contact
with someone.

What makes it worse is that if I sit in an upright (comfortable and ergonomic)
position I am staring directly at someone. I hate it.

As a result my posture and productivity noticeably decline as the day goes on.

~~~
ScottBurson
Yeah, if the cube walls are low enough that you can see over them -- or if
there are no cube walls -- it's just a disaster. I was in a place like that
once and hated it. Eventually I found a spot where I was facing a wall; that
wasn't so bad.

------
jamieb
Here's another quote: "For every complex problem there is an answer that is
clear, simple, and wrong."

My experience, anecdotal as it is, is that an open space per team is the most
effective. This being science, when has the truth ever been precisely one end
of the spectrum or the other? I'm naturally skeptical of pundits, advocating
science, who point out that developers with their own office perform better
than developer who share an open space with the call center and then claim
that this demonstrates that private offices are the best solution.

The key quote from the article is "quieter and more private".

Maybe in the days when The Architect wrote a design doc and The Engineers went
into their offices for six months, then a private office was a great way to
get to the "Oh fuck this thing will never work" moment faster.

In contrast most teams I work with collaborate at the feature level: engineers
work on the same feature, implementing different pieces together, before
moving on to the next feature. We have other teams where individual developers
take a feature and go off and work on it for a few days. The "individuals" are
"faster" claiming work is complete, but the "teams" are faster at producing
work that is accepted.

I should also add that while the team environment works for most engineers, we
have some that absolutely require a private space, and we try to accommodate
them. Individuals work differently and when we find someone good we try to
make the environment work for them.

YMMV.

~~~
wmeredith
The simple answer is that these office plans are cheaper. It's a common
business pitfall. The cheaper short term solution wins in spite of long term
health productivity and culture advantages.

~~~
notahacker
That might be true in some cases but there's an entire industry built around
renting open-plan workspaces to solo founders and freelancers who freely
choose to spend an extra $5000 per year and an hour's commute time each day
because they feel an "office environment" surrounded by other busy
professionals focuses their mind better than the serene quiet of their bedside
desk. Many of them are developers.

------
facepalm
I suppose open plan has some advantages, like it is more hip (makes for great
"we are a family" pictures), and the "team building" might make people less
likely to leave their jobs. Just guessing - in any case there might be effects
that offset the lower productivity.

Otoh I was floored to read today that Amazon apparently has lots of dogs in
their offices because it is supposedly good for the atmosphere, lower stress
levels and whatnot. I heard Google has lots of office dogs, too. I hope this
is not a case of pseudoscientific superstition, because for me office dogs
would be an absolute deal breaker. If most offices start adding dogs because
of some shaky research results I'll be in trouble :-(

~~~
saryant
My company is co-located with another company and they encourage dogs in the
office.

My question has always been: what if you want to hire someone with a dog
allergy?

Worse: what if the person isn't currently local and there aren't any dogs in
the office the day they happen to come in but relocate only to find they can't
possibly work in that office?

~~~
existencebox
While I was at google, I had (and have) a minor pet dander allergy. There were
_many_ dogs regularly in the office, and perhaps I'm being overly
paranoid/judgemental of the culture, but mentioning your own discomfort would
have been read very negatively against you by not only the dog owners but by
all the people who do buy in to that it is some part of the culture.

Whether you read that as a feature or a frustration, it comes down to that it
simply becomes another line item that potential candidates may be judging you
on, and you may never know about it. (it's certainly something I keep an eye
out for nowadays.)

~~~
saryant
Personally, I think it's wholly inappropriate to put an employee in that
situation, especially since new employees _can 't_ speak up as freely as those
with a longer tenure at the organization. You can't just show up and start
rocking the boat.

------
varelse
My litmus test for an open office fanboy manager is whether he too works in
the open office. Usually not in my experience.

Funny that...

------
BigChiefSmokem
I prefer open spaces.

I like to talk to my team about all things tech and all things not (we have
the World Cup on all day on one of our large HDTVs while we work). I also like
to know who around me is available to help if I have any issues with "Blame"
code. I love paired programming and reflecting my ideas off others to get a
good sense of what the correct course of action should be.

When I feel like I know what to do and just need time and focus to complete
something important without interruptions, I telecommute.

In other words, the best way to work is to have the ability to have it both
ways.

------
xiaoma
> _" Of course, scientists once thought that humans had 48 chromosomes. That
> partially hydrogenated vegetable oil was healthy. That egg yolks were bad
> for you."_

Scientists still do think egg yolks are bad for you.

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021915012...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021915012005047)

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=egg+yolk+consumpti...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=egg+yolk+consumption)

------
hershel
Recently i've been interested in buying a noise cancelling headphones. There's
the new bose quietcomfort 20i, which are claimed at least by some reviewers to
almost cancel talking sound.

Assuming they work well, since they are controlled using software, it might
open the way to a more "programmable" noise environment. For example you could
set them to hear only the team members you want at any given time, thus giving
you the best of both worlds.

~~~
ScottBurson
I haven't tried that model, but in my experience and from what I've heard,
noise cancelling headphones don't work that well on voices. They mostly cancel
low frequencies, below the vocal range.

In-ear monitors, that seal the ear canal like earplugs, work much better.

~~~
hershel
I know. They are supposed to be unique in that regard according to pcmag.

------
Havoc
You get used to it - plus unavoidable in some cases (travelling staff plus
office with "hotchair" open office seating for those not travelling at the
moment). I find that as long as I'm allowed to use earphones I can block
things out sufficiently.

------
Bangladesh1
I prefer little superstition with more science

------
michaelochurch
OP is a generally good post. Two minor comments.

 _Open plan has the advantages of being familiar, allowing more people to fit
into the same space, and being more egalitarian. I.e., since offices are
viewed as status symbols, providing them to developers and not to other groups
could have a significant negative impact on morale among non-developers._

Open-plan _seems_ egalitarian, but it's not. It's the opposite. If you're a
manager and your boss is on another floor, you don't have to worry about
what's on your screen, how often you go to the bathroom, and people coming up
behind you (only interns will do that) when you're obviously not receptive.
It's subordinates who end up feeling like caged animals.

When you work in an open-plan office, power relationships are shoved in your
face 8 hours per day. If you're the rare sadistic middle manager who enjoys
watching people squirm, you can do "the Boss Walk" all day and enjoy it.
Everyone else (even decent managers) is miserable. If I were a manager, I
wouldn't want this: I _don 't want_ people to feel threatened and anxious (or
a need to change what's on their screen) every time I walk by their desk on
the way to take a piss.

 _That the engineers at your company are more productive, or more in tune with
the needs of the business because of the constant natural interaction with
their coworkers._

I worked for an R&D think-tank during a summer internship. Everyone had an
office, but at 3:00 there was "tea" and people got together for snacks and
board games for an hour. They naturally ended up having this kind of
conversation.

There are better ways to achieve this. Open-plan offices may populate the
social graph, but they flood it with antagonistic edges. What the fuck good is
that? None.

~~~
greenyoda
_" I worked for an R&D think-tank during a summer internship. Everyone had an
office, but at 3:00 there was "tea" and people got together for snacks..."_

That's also the custom in many academic departments.

------
nsxwolf
2014 is the year of the war on open plan offices.

Some people enjoy working in them, you know. Not everyone is interested in
saying "how high" every time some grad student's study says "jump".

~~~
greenyoda
_Peopleware_ was published in 1987. This body of research is not something
that suddenly sprang up in 2014.

~~~
nsxwolf
So are people not allowed to prefer open office layouts? They're not allowed
to discern what works for them, because there couldn't possibly be any
variables that make the results of some study irrelevant to their unique
situation?

Edit: It would appear the answer is "no", no one is to be allowed make that
decision. HN hates open plans more than they hate sexism.

~~~
sheepmullet
So meet us "private office folks" half way and have enough private offices and
open space for everyone. That way if you want to work in the open office
section you can but the rest of us aren't forced into low productivity and
constant low level anxiety simply because you enjoy it.

~~~
nsxwolf
That sounds like a reasonable compromise, but I'll need to see some studies
before trying it.

