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.
You also have to consider the opposite side of the coin- you should be interviewing them as much as they are you. The VP's responses should have been a red flag to you. Not just because of the fact that he apparently hadn't heard of the debate over open floor plans over the decades, but mostly due to the fact he seemingly punished you for speaking out. Typically, not fun people to work for.
And yes I'm fully aware that sometimes you're in a positions of "I need a job and can't be too picky". I hope you were in a better position than that and had the opportunity to turn them down. If not, I'd be curious how it turned out.
Interviews are tough. There's very little time to get a feel for whether a person would be a good fit for an organization - and often, you have to make a judgment: was this comment just off-the-cuff curiosity, or does the fact that the person brought up the open-plan indicate that he or she would have problems with the way that the company works?
In interviews, the open-plan office is non-negotiable. It's not like you're going to convince them in an interview to change their minds and build closed offices. I can imagine a lot of interviewers going "well, if he or she brought it up and has actually studied literature on it, then it's probably something that bothers them, and if it's something that bothers them, we might have a problem down the road... maybe it's better to test the water than to offer full employment."
To be clear, this is a problem with the interview process, not with you (or the person hiring). There's just not enough time to actually understand a person, so interviewers are forced to make guesses and go with their hunches. And because the cost of hiring the wrong person is high, interviewers will often look for any small thing to refuse a hire.
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?
Fit interviews are hard for engineers. Technical interviews are about getting the right answer. Fit interviews are about whether you can tell a convincing lie ("of course I like the working under tight deadlines to changing requirements with minimal support from the business.") It's a tough context switch: from zero-in-on-right-answer to socially-acceptable-bald-faced-lie.
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...
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.
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.
The "nearby hotelling areas" thing is okay when you do everything on a laptop, but as developers we tend to have all our state on a desktop machine driving 2 or 3 large monitors. We can't just pick it up and go into a "focus room", as they're called where I work.
My own opinion is that it should be the other way around. In the open space, library rules apply: brief whispered conversations only. For extended discussions, go into a "focus room".
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."
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.
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"?
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.
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.
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.
Interesting. Never even considered the eye contact thing. Ours is open plan but you're always looking at a partition or out the window. That makes it a bit more bearable.
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.
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.
Some workplaces don't limit it to "an open space per team", but mix multiple teams, whose distractions aren't relevant to other teams, in the same big room.
"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"
Collaboration is much better with private offices. If Steve and Jim and Sally are working on a feature together then they can all take their laptops into Steves office and work on it together.
On the other hand even something as simple as pair programming in an open office can disturb dozens of other people. Where I work teams will book out meeting rooms for a few days at a time just to be able to collaborate without annoying the rest of the floor.
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 :-(
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?
> I hope this is not a case of pseudoscientific superstition
There is science behind it, although accommodations should be made for those who are allergic or have phobias.
"There is plenty of research to show that this isn’t just another shaggy dog tale. Studies going back to the early 1980s support the idea that dogs—and other pets—have enormous health benefits for people. Pets have been shown to lower blood pressure, improve recovery from heart disease, and even reduce rates of asthma and allergy in children who grow up with a Fido or a Frisky in the house. Pets also improve people’s psychological well-being and self-esteem."
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.
>"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[+] [-] 7402|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] fooqux|11 years ago|reply
And yes I'm fully aware that sometimes you're in a positions of "I need a job and can't be too picky". I hope you were in a better position than that and had the opportunity to turn them down. If not, I'd be curious how it turned out.
[+] [-] astalwick|11 years ago|reply
In interviews, the open-plan office is non-negotiable. It's not like you're going to convince them in an interview to change their minds and build closed offices. I can imagine a lot of interviewers going "well, if he or she brought it up and has actually studied literature on it, then it's probably something that bothers them, and if it's something that bothers them, we might have a problem down the road... maybe it's better to test the water than to offer full employment."
To be clear, this is a problem with the interview process, not with you (or the person hiring). There's just not enough time to actually understand a person, so interviewers are forced to make guesses and go with their hunches. And because the cost of hiring the wrong person is high, interviewers will often look for any small thing to refuse a hire.
[+] [-] arethuza|11 years ago|reply
Presumably you didn't take up their offer?
[+] [-] logfromblammo|11 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] michaelochurch|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cliffcrosland|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] ScottBurson|11 years ago|reply
My own opinion is that it should be the other way around. In the open space, library rules apply: brief whispered conversations only. For extended discussions, go into a "focus room".
That, I think, could work.
[+] [-] frisco|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
Open plan offices are penny-wise and pound-foolish.
[+] [-] hollerith|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gojomo|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] hga|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotty79|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evan_|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skizm|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Havoc|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamieb|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gojomo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sheepmullet|11 years ago|reply
Collaboration is much better with private offices. If Steve and Jim and Sally are working on a feature together then they can all take their laptops into Steves office and work on it together.
On the other hand even something as simple as pair programming in an open office can disturb dozens of other people. Where I work teams will book out meeting rooms for a few days at a time just to be able to collaborate without annoying the rest of the floor.
[+] [-] facepalm|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|11 years ago|reply
There is science behind it, although accommodations should be made for those who are allergic or have phobias.
"There is plenty of research to show that this isn’t just another shaggy dog tale. Studies going back to the early 1980s support the idea that dogs—and other pets—have enormous health benefits for people. Pets have been shown to lower blood pressure, improve recovery from heart disease, and even reduce rates of asthma and allergy in children who grow up with a Fido or a Frisky in the house. Pets also improve people’s psychological well-being and self-esteem."
http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/therapy-dog-offers-stress...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19185195
[+] [-] varelse|11 years ago|reply
Funny that...
[+] [-] BigChiefSmokem|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
Scientists still do think egg yolks are bad for you.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021915012...
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=egg+yolk+consumpti...
[+] [-] hershel|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
In-ear monitors, that seal the ear canal like earplugs, work much better.
[+] [-] Havoc|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bangladesh1|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelochurch|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply
That's also the custom in many academic departments.
[+] [-] nsxwolf|11 years ago|reply
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|11 years ago|reply