Office layouts

[Gary R Wheeler]

I'll add my vote for high cubicle partitions: 60 inches at least, 72 if possible. If you can, go for the more expensive ones that include significant sound-absorption material (yes, there are differences). Move the constant phone-yackers into their own area (or just kill them; take your pick). We have the high partitions, which is nice. Unfortunately they went with the cheap materials, so noise is a problem. I'm also surrounded by phone junkies, so I'm forced to use a pair of studio headphones if I want to get anything useful done.

Shelby Robertson wrote:

there will be no agile, XP, pair programming, or any other hippie crap going on

Excellent.

Software Zen: delete this;

[Shelby Robertson]

:thumbsup: +5

CPallini wrote:

You cannot argue with agile people so just take the extreme approach and shoot him. :Smile:

[Lost User]

And the rest of the staff refused to have you in with them?

MVVM# - See how I did MVVM my way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

[Harry Neethling]

Sometimes people stop and tell me "Inner voice", usually happens when I am happily excited. Also I have worked with someone in the past where the guy was talking so soft I had to tell him to speak up cause I couldn't hear what he was saying. Maybe I should get my ears checked out :) .

[Espen Harlinn]

Measure the output of the developers when they work in a private office vs when they work in an open office layout. If people perform best when working in a private office, let them have a private office - and if they perform well in an open office layout, let them work there. On the average I would expect those who perform best in a private office to significantly outperform those who work best in an open office layout.

Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra

[BobJanova]

I am a programmer :p. As long as people use their 'indoor voice' and there aren't lots of phones (which I agree are a killer), I have no problem getting into the zone. If you're easily distracted by noise then headphones and some relaxing music can be very helpful.

[102hamo]

I agree with this one. In my old company we used to be fully open planned (all departments could see and hear each other). We moved offices and split into different departments, this meant we could talk more openly and helped create functional, solid teams. It also stopped other departments getting annoyed with our technical debates over x and y. It also helped us talk in private when necessary about issues. An example being that we had a bunch of redundancies after the office move and it wasn't appropriate to talk about them in a public area. You'll be surprised how talking about it actually helps in morale, as it gives a mentality of "we are all in it together". I was working at an established SMB with about 40 employees.

[CHill60]

I've been through various options of boxes to open plan and everything in between, over several years. Bit of an extrovert but need to find my own "zone" occasionally. Strong advocate of "cardboard-cutout" problem solving. So ... For a good mix of productivity and "socialisation" overall I think Maximilien is spot on (as was DD above)

[Fran Porretto]

What's worked out best in the environments I've inhabited / managed has been:

1. A nod toward privacy for individual developers;
2. Copious areas for meetings, conversations, and general head-knocking.

Individual offices (which might be cubicles) don't have to be terribly large. Similarly, meeting rooms should be a range of sizes -- and there should be a couple, at least, that cannot be "reserved" by some swelled head for a meeting he alone thinks is critically important.

The underlying idea here is that individuals' needs are not static; they change according to circumstances and the challenges in them. The one thing that cannot be provided as an afterthought is privacy, so that must be planned into the layout. However, when it's necessary to break the isolation, that must be possible too, so a goodly supply of meeting places, such that your developers can always count on getting access to one at need, is highly desirable.

Oh, and don't forget to provide a room for the coffee mess and refrigerator!

(This message is programming you in ways you cannot detect. Be afraid.)

[JMBeyer]

The problem is that some people won't use their indoor voices. We have the option of working from home so often on days when I'm going to be doing heads down coding, that's the option I choose. Otherwise, I do opt for the headphones.

[Lost User]

The issue is not necessarily open offices, but keeping the environment QUIET so that you can focus on the code. Most programmers fall into the introvert side of the extrovert\introvert scale. Background noise and interruptions are disastrous for introverts. IF you can keep the environment quiet and free of interruptions you can high level of concentration from your introvert folks

[Kieryn Phipps]

In my experience I would say it depends on the type of work being done. If the work involves lots of small tasks/requests done by and for many different people or even if it's a medium-sized single project but done in an agile way, open plan or cubicle is best. However if the work is for a large complex system and is technically difficult, requires focus, and many hours of work, then private offices are more suitable.

[agolddog]

I agree with what I think Dave's writing. The best solutions I've seen are those with a few developers on a team sharing a common area. Encourages teamwork and the turn around, "hey Bob, I'm hung up on this." sort of interaction. Keep in mind that there needs to be some private area too; meeting rooms or the like, so when someone needs to have a discussion, they can go in there without interrupting the other members of the team. However, if possible, these groups should not just be thrown out in the middle of an open area. Where I'm currently working we went from a setup of all the developers in one end of the building in a mostly shared area to a cube farm sort of setup, where the cubes are aligned linearly and right outside the kitchen. < rant > So, in addition to moving to s****y call-center-worker sized cubes which encourage separation, we get all the noise of people getting their coffee, lunch, having their social time in the kitchen. Of course, a wall/divider to block some of the noise has been talked about since June. Needless to say, management isn't that effective. Maybe for the first anniversary of the move. < / rant > Anyway, don't do that.

[Shelby Robertson]

Fran Porretto wrote:

Individual offices (which might be cubicles) don't have to be terribly large. Similarly, meeting rooms should be a range of sizes -- and there should be a couple, at least, that cannot be "reserved" by some swelled head for a meeting he alone thinks is critically important.

Couldn't agree with you more.

CPallini wrote:

You cannot argue with agile people so just take the extreme approach and shoot him. :Smile:

[Bruce Patin]

No one has mentioned bookcases, which don't fit well in an open plan. I know, books are passe these days, but I still keep a few for reference. So, at least some sort of cubicle wall is needed. Regarding being in the zone, I am able to ignore almost anything (just ask my wife) to concentrate on work. Noise doesn't bother me as long as it isn't intelligent noise (which means most people talking are no distraction). My kids need headphones, which seem to work. I am distracted though by anyone staring at me while I try to work. And last but not least, no one has mentioned passing gas, for which a private office is needed, preferably in a corner with a separate air flow system and a window.

[hotrod5000]

This guy is hilarious. Probably comes from a six sigma, "measure everything" background. If you've been in software for more than 15 minutes, you'd know that the major dilemma of the last 20 years is how the hell to "measure the output of the developers".

[hairy_hats]

Passing gas is the only benefit of open plan offices. Why should I suffer alone?

[BrainiacV]

Rodney Smith wrote:

If you've been in software for more than 15 minutes, you'd know that the major dilemma of the last 20 years is how the hell to "measure the output of the developers".

I agree 100%, I used to work at a place that wanted us to record how long it took to develop every subroutine so they could estimate how long it would take to write the next system. In reality, they probably wanted metrics so they could beat on you if they thought another person had taken less time to write a similar (but not the same) subroutine. One office layout they would have loved would have been the Star Trek bridge layout. The manager sitting in the center seat and being able to rotate and observe the contents of anyone's screens at any time. We used to be told that the manager should be able to immediately recognize the contents of your screen and its relevance to the project at hand, or you better be able to do some fast talking to explain it.

Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.

[SeattleC]

Offices are not expensive if the company values productivity of its workers. Any company that implements open-plan offices either (1) believes open-plan improves productivity, or (2) doesn't expect top-rate work from its employees, preferring instead the thousand-monkeys-at-a-typewriter approach to coding. Companies will blather all kinds of platitudes in support of spending as little as possible on office space; they're startups and "can't afford it", "everybody knows" that open plan is productive, they have to "co-locate their teams" (a half-read harvard business review meme). Bell Telephone Labs in the Chicago area had an office plan that was a circle of closed-off offices around a common meeting area or lab space. Their office building replicated this basic plan on an epic scale. This is my personal favorite office layout. It provides quiet and privacy but also facilitates team interaction. I've seen this plan replicated, for instance at the new CS building at the University of Washington. When I was starting my career, I loved cubicles because you could hear what everybody was doing. As I became more senior and had to solve harder problems, I came to hate cubicles, because you could hear what everybody was doing. Completely open office spaces terrify me. I don't want to know if my colleague picks their nose or ate beans for lunch. I hate having to reserve a conference room for a brief conversation to avoid distracting the whole team. And I hate sitting elbow-to-elbow with a dozen smart people and working silently like a freaking robot rather than interacting. Completely open offices foster isolation, not communication. In my humble opinion, enough wall that you aren't staring right into someone's face is the minimum acceptable privacy. Open offices where I have worked did some stuff to facilitate more communication. We had a local IRC server, and had a channel for general conversations. You could check it out when you wanted a brief disctraction. The IRC client would notify you if your name was mentioned. This worked for not-too-hard conversations, but it was not a good way to solve difficult problems, because only the senior people ever contributed. On the plus side, status meetings only took 60 seconds; team members would prepare their status info and dump it onto the IRC channel. Then only if there was something to talk about did we hold a conversation. It disposed of a tedious meeting. When I'm interviewing, I look at the office layout as a proxy for how much the company values its employ

[Espen Harlinn]

Rodney Smith wrote:

This guy is hilarious.

Thank you, I've been known to tell a joke or two :laugh: This was in relation to private office vs open office layout. While I find it quite interesting to discuss my work, other peoples work, designs and architecture etc. I know for a fact that I'm most productive when I can work uninterrupted for several hours at a time - something that is just not possible in an open office environment.

Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra