
Is Agile Stifling Introverts? - nickmain
http://www.infoq.com/news/2012/03/agile_stifiling_introverts
======
angstrom
Currently working in an open plan office and I hate it. The open plan office
seeks to solve the problem of knowledge silos where people hole up and wait
for people to come to them. Unfortunately, once that knowledge is distributed
the constant interruptions leads to an environment where no one can focus and
formulate new ideas during the 9-6 time frame. So work starts to seep into
personal time which leads to a far larger problem where people become
resentful on a regular basis and burnout. Meanwhile, the CTOs and VPs who also
sit in the open plan floor can be seen leaving on a regular basis at 6:00
sharp. I have not achieved a state of mental flow in over a year. If a place
I'm interviewing at has adopted the open floor plan, it's a deal breaker.

I've worked in cubicle farms, private rooms, shared rooms, and clustered team
cubicle rooms. Cubicle farms are equally abhorred to open plan. I think the
best mixture is shared rooms with private meeting rooms on a reservation
basis, preferably with the private rooms along the windows and meeting rooms
in the middle of the building.

~~~
sandGorgon
question - do things like noise cancellation earphones, etc. not work for you?

I work in an unusually noisy operation, right next to ecommerce field ops and
my Ultimate Ears are a godsend.

At the VP/CTO level, it wont help because you will be talking to people all
day anyway.

~~~
dwc
That's an individual response to an organizational problem, and the
organizational problem remains. The company has created an environment that is
actively hostile to productivity, and you are cleverly finding a way around
it.

That's great for you. But I find headphones uncomfortable to some degree. I
find music distracting much of the time. I've tried, believe me. I think I'm
not alone in this, so expensive headphones are not a total answer. But the
larger issue remains: why should individual employees have to find ways around
a productivity-killing environment created by the employer? It's absurd.

Note: some time ago on another HN thread I wrote a similar comment. I feel
it's worth repeating my sentiments here. On that thread, amusingly, people
responded to me with suggestions for nicer headphones and types of music.
Don't bother for two reasons: 1) I've explored the options already, and 2)
you're missing my point entirely.

------
SoftwareMaven
I refuse to work anywhere there is an open office. Every time I've been forced
into that, my productivity drops through the floor and my misery sky rockets.

Employers need to understand different people work differently. Want a truly
efficient knowledge worker staff? Do try to cookie-cutter their environment.
Give people the environment they need to succeed, which for some may be open
collaboration and others quiet reserve. When the brain is really the only
limiter on productivity, optimize for that.

~~~
kfcm
I agree with you (generally) on principal. However, employers don't like
individuality. Individuality costs money and makes more work. Just conform to
the cookie-cutter employment contract/workspace/toolsets, and don't rock the
boat.

~~~
mrweasel
I see your point in "Individuality costs money.... ", but I doubt it does.

Open source projects find an fix bugs quickly, if there's enough developers,
because people are different, work different and think different. I would
argue that individuality saves time, money and work.

That being said, businesses could just cookie-cut smaller offices and more
people would get more work done.

~~~
Silhouette
I don't think there's much doubt, from a management/accounting perspective,
that supporting diverse requirements for a workforce of individuals costs more
than supporting uniform requirements for a workforce of enforced clones.

The thing is, the cost isn't what really matters, the cost/benefit ratio is.
You want to put your people in an environment that optimises the productivity
of your organisation as whole, by getting the balance right between supporting
both individual performance and effective collaboration. If detailed
customisation of the environment for every single member of your staff to hit
that balance will increase your costs by 100%, but doing so increases
productivity of your overall organisation by 200%, then it's a very beneficial
action.

------
jdlshore
I'm an introvert, and I've done a lot of pair programming. I've done a lot of
solo programming, too. The InfoQ essay makes a fundamental mistake:

Being an introvert isn't the same as needing to work alone.

Introverts gain energy from focusing on the "internal world" of thoughts and
ideas. Extroverts gain energy from focusing on the "external world" of
socializing and interactions.

So, as an introvert, I can do just fine as a public speaker, consultant, and
yes, pair programmer and Agile team member, because those activities are
focused on thoughts and ideas. (I don't do so well at parties or conference
ice-breakers, and that's fine.)

The other error I see in the InfoQ essay is that it conflates "Agile" with
"decision by committee." It's true that Agile teams work in, well, teams, but
that's not the same as everybody being involved in every decision. Team
members on a high-functioning team know who on the team is best at what, and
they automatically delegate everyday decisions to the people most qualified to
make those decisions.

It does take a while for a team to reach this level of capability, and the
early stages of team growth can be uncomfortable and difficult, often with too
many meetings, but that doesn't mean that "Agile" == "decision by committee."
It just means that smooth-running work takes time and practice. No surprise
there.

~~~
mrweasel
I was going to point out something similar. I know people who are extroverts,
but are completely incapable of working in an open office. The few people I
know, how claim that an open office plan helps still needs headphones and
music in order to close out the noise. Personally I "just" need complete
silence, but that's not related to being introvert or extrovert.

Semi-related: I'm starting to be a bit ticked of about the whole
introvert/extrovert. Some forums, HN, include seems to be celebrating the
whole introvert thing, like it's somehow "better". Much in the same way as
some thinks that NoSQL is just better than RDBMS, regardless of the
application. People are just different, but we're still struggling to deal
with it, businesses even more so.

I have no idea if I'm an introvert or not, nor do I care to know, I'm just me.

~~~
dwc
Celebrating introversion is a reaction to the cultural notion that
extroversion is the ideal. It's unfortunate that you (and presumably others)
get getting the impression that it's being put forward as better. I don't
think the likes of Susan Cain are saying that. Let's recognize instead that
not everyone is the same, and that a Procrustean approach is stifling and
counterproductive.

I'm sure that there are some people who want the pendulum to swing their way.
That can serve a purpose of raising awareness, but should never come at the
expense of stifling extroverts.

------
amcintyre
_"Is it time to go back to the cubicles?"_

Personally, I think cubicles are just about as bad as open-plan offices. I
want an office and a door I can close to keep people out when I need quiet.

~~~
ux_designer
Where are you going to find a office that has 50-something private offices?

I've worked in places with 30+ programmers - what building exists that a
company could afford to have 30 private offices??

~~~
krallja
Fog Creek Software, for one (that's me in the second picture)
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/12/29.html>

------
sirclueless
I had an internship last summer where the interns were all in an open-air
room. It worked pretty well even though I am 95% introvert, because I
naturally tend to zone out everything I'm not focused on anyways.

I think it's possible to simulate that, even if you aren't naturally oblivious
so your surroundings, by putting on a comfy pair of over-the-ear noise
cancelling headphones and listening to some ambient music. In addition to
providing insulation from audible distractions, it's also a good cue to your
co-workers that if they try to attract your attention, they will be
interrupting you. If you are distracted easily in your peripheral vision by
people walking by, then this won't help you much, but otherwise it's a pretty
good approximation of being alone.

My point is that as a programmer there are things you can do even in an open-
air environment to provide creative isolation, without losing the benefits of
having easy access to the people around you when you want to talk.

------
hsmyers
In a very long work career, I've spent time in just about every office
configuration you can imagine. As I read this article and the comments here I
thought back over where I was most productive and most comfortable. And
surprised myself! As it turns out I find that a sort of compromise between
open office and cubical space seems to work best for me---large cubical with 4
work spaces, each placed in a corner. They are far enough away so that I can
ignore them as need be, yet near enough for conversations/questions about the
current project. In the two instances where that was the situation, I was both
productive and comfortable---hard to argue with that. It never occured to me
to ask whose idea the setup was, but it was a good one in my estimation.

~~~
matwood
I was also thinking about the question over my working career. My best work
has been done in a closed office shared with 1 or 2 other people also working
on the same project. I worked at home for 2 years and while I had great spurts
of productivity when the task was well defined, getting questions answered or
bouncing ideas off others hurt some types of work.

Cubes never did work well for me because they rarely get any natural light.
I'm a sun driven person and try my best to insist on a window in my office.

------
willvarfar
> "Is it time to go back to the cubicles?"

No! Offices with doors! <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/12/29.html>

------
kevinpet
I think this is about disorganization masquerading as agile. I'm a big
believer in Scrum. Scrum, with bi-weekly sprints and daily standups is less
overhead of talking to coworkers than I've experienced at places that are not
as formally agile (either not claiming to be agile, or not following a
specific methodology).

I'm not a fan of open plan, but I can deal with it. It works fine when people
have the sense to take meetings into, you know, the meeting rooms.

------
DanielRibeiro
On this[1] recent podcast[2] fogus had some amazing insights on Pair
Programming, as Relevance also has a pairing policy.

[1] [http://thinkrelevance.com/blog/2012/03/28/thinkrelevance-
the...](http://thinkrelevance.com/blog/2012/03/28/thinkrelevance-the-podcast-
episode-008-michael-fogus)

[2] [http://blog.fogus.me/2012/03/29/fogus-on-think-relevance-
pod...](http://blog.fogus.me/2012/03/29/fogus-on-think-relevance-podcast/)

------
kijin
I don't think agile is necessarily anti-introverts. Pair programming isn't the
beginning and end of agile. You can have agile while giving each programmer a
private office and encouraging them to interact as needed in a common space.
You can just as easily have waterfall where everyone is crammed into an open-
plan office.

But of course, in practice, buzzwords tend to get abused by extraverts to
describe whatever they want.

------
adrianhoward
If you believe the whole introvert/extrovert Jungian/Myers-Briggs thing I
classify as an introvert and I _love_ agile. So do lots of other folk I know -
including some of the people who actually started the whole agile thing (there
was a long and tedious thread on the XP list on the topic if anybody cares to
read up - see
[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/msearc...](http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/msearch?query=+Introverts%2C+Agile+and+Creativity))

As others have pointed out, no agile process that I am aware of recommends
open plan offices. Open plan offices suck. What many in the agile community do
recommend is having team rooms - where everybody working on a particular sits
together.

In fact the only agile process I'm aware of that makes _any_ explicit
statement on working environment is XP - which has having per-project team
rooms as one of it's practices (the primary practice of "Sit together" In
XP2E)

And there's a lot of actual evidence that the team-room way of working is
very, very effective. See this quora answer of mine for some references
[http://www.quora.com/Is-having-all-the-startup-engineers-
wor...](http://www.quora.com/Is-having-all-the-startup-engineers-work-at-the-
same-room-a-good-thing-or-not/answer/Adrian-Howard), and the agile alliance
guide has some references too
<http://guide.agilealliance.org/guide/teamroom.html>. Especially the "Offices
That Work" paper that has some nice info on the relative trade-offs.

I find it curious that so many folk focus on individual performance - when
most development is a team sport. I don't care if I'm a little less productive
as an individual by a few project-related interruptions if the overall
productivity of the team I'm working on improves.

------
msluyter
I think the article is possibly conflating a couple of different things:

a) Open office plans -- for a lot of reasons I'd agree that these suck, but

b) Brainstorming -- Recent studies suggesting that it's ineffective are
intruiging, but I wonder to what extent group cohesion matters? Cohesive
groups where we're less worried about looking bad might be more effective.

c) Pair programming -- even though I'd definitely consider myself an
introvert, pair programming doesn't rise to the level of social invasiveness
that I would find problematic. In other words, most introverts dislike being
around large groups, strangers, trying to chit-chat/schmooze, etc... but are
often find around smaller groups of people they know and get along with. So
I'd be hesitant to group pair programming with the others. OTOH, I've never
had to do it all day long, so I'm not sure how that feels. Can anyone speak to
that?

~~~
ams6110
I quit a good job I otherwise enjoyed because of pair programming.

~~~
nydev
Interesting. Was it the pairing per se or the people you were paired up with
that didn't work for you?

------
schadr
As most of the comments pointed out the problem is not with agile but rather
with the tendency to only have one way to solve a problem and mostly ignore
that we are individuals with rather different needs.

With respect to brainstorming I had session that worked fantastically and
others that don't, and in my opinion in session that don't work there is
someone that has power over the majority of the group and is simply dictating
what happens in the brainstorming session.

------
nickcassimatis
On the one hand, many of the smartest people need significant amounts of time
alone to think through their work. On the other, so many decisions an
individual in a team makes are constrained by the requirements of the rest of
the team. To find these out, you need to coordinate with the team, and that's
much easier when everyone is physically together.

In our startup, we deal with this tradeoff with two spatial configurations. We
spend part of our time together in an open space where interruptions are
common and expected. We spend the rest of our time miles apart, occasionally
coordinating over email and IM whenever needed.

Perhaps one way to achieve this in larger teams is to block off large chunks
of the week during which it is understood no one interrupts anyone else.
Weekends already play this role for many people I know. They often work for a
good chunk of the weekend, but are not expected to take calls or return
emails. It's when they do some of their deepest thinking and best writing.

~~~
X-Istence
I'm sorry, but I have started putting my foot down with my work and saying
that the weekend is mine. I have come to the conclusion that working hard 24/7
is starting to wear me out and is starting to make me resentful.

I'm available throughout the week, if you can't provide and environment for me
where I can be productive because of for example an open floor plan then I am
not going to spend my time for you.

I have been very fortunate though in that I have a very understanding boss
that lets me work whatever hours I please (I generally get to the office by
around 1000/1030 and leave at around 1800/1900) and that has helped my
productivity quite a bit as well because I am sleeping on my own sleep
schedule that works for me, and at the tail end of the day when I am most
productive the office is empty and quiet and I can get my work done.

------
sassafras
The New York Times article the post initially links to is a lot more
interesting. Besides debunking formal brainstorming processes, it also points
out the increasing necessity of creative group work, as well as strategies
that are quite effective. Examples include MIT's chaotic Building 20, and the
sweet spot of "familiar but not too familiar" in hit Broadway musical teams.

Perhaps Agile with a capital A does hold something in common with the formal
technique of brainstorming. The key point of the Lehrer piece is that in order
for group creativity to flourish you need to foster debate and disagreement,
not just uncritical free association in a conference room. And even then, it's
good not to put too much formal process in place, because the best
interactions are unscripted. But this in turn solidifies the need for work
spaces that maximize the chance for these encounters.

------
hkarthik
I've commented on this before, but I'll reiterate that in my experience, 3-5
person team rooms work best. Smaller teams tend to be the most successful at
breaking large problems up into smaller, shippable chunks. Also, they can
minimize the distractions by controlling their own space.

If an individual needs private time, I think a generous work-from-home policy
can do wonders. Give a person 2 days of the week to work from home and let the
team self manage time in/out of the office. Letting the team work out
scheduling helps them maximize productivity with _both_ group-think and
individual contributions.

------
zeroonetwothree
The most interesting thing in my mind is not which type of office plan is best
for which type of person, but that no one can ever agree on the answer. Maybe
the right solution is to allow a mix of plans? Let people have private offices
that want them, and an open plan for those that want that too. True, it won't
be perfect and there might be some issues with teams mixing up different types
too much, but overall it might be better than only having one type of
floorplan.

------
leoedin
Generally I find with programming and problem solving problems I work well
with a mix of time alone to implement and try ideas followed by some time
discussing the problem with others. Often just talking through a problem leads
to a solution you hadn't considered, or someone else's input forces you to
think about other aspects of the problem. However, trying to actually
implement the solution with someone looking over your shoulder definitely
doesn't help.

------
codereview
My biggest problem is this equates Agile to Scrum, pair programming, and open
floor plans.

Agile is also dev practices: refactoring, TDD, unit testing, continuous build,
etc. Agile = faster development and accelerated deliverability. Sure,
cooperation and breaking down silos is part of it but introverts can unit
test. (Learn more: <http://j.mp/Hex2Uy>)

------
maximilianburke
At my current place of work I have the choice of working in a 2-person office
or on the (semi-)open floor. Working on the open floor can be frustrating with
the distraction, but it has natural light. Working in an office is productive
but without the light it's depressing.

My current compromise is to enjoy the natural light on the floor and use
earplugs when I really need to concentrate.

~~~
gte910h
You can buy lights from costco that simulate natural light for about $100
bucks. All depression will vanish.

------
dustineichler
I've been saying this for a while, but the "inmates have taken over the
asylum". Not only that, but "Agile" is subject to really loose interpretations
and it suffers as a result, both in implementation and practice.

------
tnash
I agree with the points in the article that brainstorming is unhelpful and
pair programming can be useful. I have yet to attend a meeting at work with
more than one person that has yielded anything useful. In those meetings the
extroverts take over and the introverts are left in the corner twiddling their
thumbs. If we were given access to the meeting agenda beforehand, and were
given time to work on the points individually beforehand, the meeting may
actually be productive.

------
recursive
I work in an open office floor plan, and I enjoy it. So that sometimes
happens.

------
darkxanthos
There is so much irony around "agilistas" applying practices like these carte
blanche.

Let's create a new buzzword: POPS People over process, stupid.

------
paulhauggis
Why are we bending over backwards for Introverts? If you can't work on a team
and socialize to the degree that you will be a functional team member, you
probably should think about getting some kind of therapy before getting a job
as a developer.

Any project that gets bigger than a few thousand lines of code can't be
maintained by a lone developer. It also requires some sort of socialization.
Every placed I've ever worked required me to talk to other developers because
my code would most likely be touching theirs to some degree or I would need to
get info on something I would be working on.

~~~
tbrownaw
Because _some_ social interaction is necessary, allowing anything less than
constant total social immersion is "bending over backwards for Introverts" and
anyone who desires such is useless dead weight. Anyone who thinks that it
might be useful to have even ten minutes of peace and quiet to be able to type
or think without interruption is clearly delusional, because all thinking is
done as part of a conversation.

~~~
paulhauggis
so, brainstorming is useless?

Sitting around and talking about an idea is useless?

The entire point of the article is not to discount these things because they
are useless, but to discount them because a small percentage of the population
find them uncomfortable.

~~~
paulhauggis
I forgot. HN is filled with introverts and rather than use logic and
intelligence to vote on comments, use pure emotion.

~~~
cgoddard
I think you're being downvoted because your opinions are grossly misinformed.
40-50+% of the US population could be classified as introverts (1). This
couldn't in any way be called "a small percentage".

Introversion is a personality trait, with advantages and disadvantages. To say
that introverts "should think about getting some kind of therapy" simply for
being introverts is simply irrational prejudice.

(1) [http://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/estimated-
frequencies.ht...](http://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/estimated-
frequencies.htm)

------
slantyyz
I don't think you can blame Agile for this.

Lone wolves don't belong in packs.

~~~
alextgordon
Sure you can. Introverts make up a large fraction of the population (just have
a look at this poll[1]). If Agile is reduces the quality of their work, then
the "pack" may well be better off without it.

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943722>

~~~
slantyyz
What collaborative face-to-face environment doesn't reduce the quality of
introverts' work?

Most work environments today are open, regardless of industry. Strong
personalities and herd thinking exist outside of the tech world too.

Pointing the finger at agile might get eyeballs, but you have to keep in mind
that open office plans have been popular long before Agile became a mainstream
buzzword, probably because they're cheaper than putting up walls. I tend to
think the Japanese management fad of the 80s probably had a little to do with
it too.

And not every group practising agile is pair programming.

I am no fan of Agile, and as a former introvert, I can say that the only thing
that stifled me in my introverted days was my own introversion.

------
sek
[http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce...](http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html)

~~~
bdgilroy
Your comment here is a bit terse, but I'm going to read it as promoting having
options and agree with you based on that.

I think that it is quite possible that Agile doesn't serve the best interests
of introverted programmers, but I disagree that this is a bad thing for
programming as a whole.

There are plenty of introverted programmers. If the dominant office/workflow
structure of the day makes them less productive than they would be on their
own, that creates a huge opportunity for an office/workflow structure that
makes introverted programmers more productive than they would be on their own.

On the other hand, I think that some percentage of introverted programmers who
don't take a shine to Agile could search forever for an office/workflow
structure that they like and never find one, because their issue is mainly
with collaboration and exposing their work to criticism while it is still in
mid-process.

This group of malcontents can be subdivided still further into those who can
make it on their own and those who really would benefit from the sort of
collaboration and criticism that they resist. It is this last group that
aren't merely introverted, they are also _faint of heart_. I spend about
40-50% of my time in this category and it's real bad. I take solace in my
relative youth and inexperience, I need to know that I won't be this sort of
introvert for long.

~~~
sek
My point was that there is not one perfect solution that fits for everything,
this approach is negative as a whole. This video is just from another industry
where they tried it in another area. It shows the corporate mentality in
tackling problems.

The reality is much more complex especially when it comes to people with
different needs. This makes it probably more difficult for companies, but when
they produce software they have to invest in finding the best "solutions".

