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Offices vs. Cubes For Developers?
k12boy asks: "The company I work for has just announced that we're going to move our corporate headquarters (locally, but to a new building) and our facilities folks are currently searching for the new space. My intuition tells me that the developers on my team would be a lot more productive if I could give them offices (even shared) instead of the cube space they currently have, but I don't have any data to back it up. Does anyone have a pointer to any studies that prove me right or wrong?" Studies aside, can anyone think of a time that programmers actuallly did work more happily or productively in cubicles? Might there be advantages to more open workspaces compared to closed office doors?
programmers get privacy from others, quietness, play music w/o others being able to hear, more decorating space for things like magnetic dart boards, more storage space for books, toys, etc. the list goes on....
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The main reason individual offices are avoided? Expense. You'll likely get that as an argument for a cube farm, regardless of what studies you can quote about productivity. I encourage you to stick to your guns, though -- point out short term cost gains vs. long term productivity of other arrangements. Office walls and cube farms both cost money up front.
If you do end up with a cube farm anyways, make the most of it. Give neighbors the right to have music turned down, and encourage or even require use of headphones. Some nice noise-cancelling headphones are even better.
When I worked in a cube farm, several of us made signs:
Do Not Disturb
if you really need to reach me:
- try back later
- send me email
- leave a message
The signs were on strings and hung across the cubical entrance to physically block the way.It took a while (it would have gone quicker if I could have given a shock to people who ignored it :-), but eventually people learned to respect the signs. Even the execs.
One theory is that the part of the brain that's mostly involved in creativity and general insight is easily interrupted by outside noises, including music. They found the same results among people who like to work with music and those who don't.
They further point out research that shows that good programmers tend to have bigger offices. It's not clear whether the better programmers get jobs at better companies, or whether bigger offices tend to make programmers better. But as Fred Brooks said about this study, ``Who cares what the reason is!?'' Big Offices are obviously a good thing.
My company, a little over a year ago, moved offices. The software developers (including myself) went from private offices to cubes.
As you can guess no one was (or is) happy about it, this topic is the source of endless debate and complaints to this day. Now, we have really nice cube, with pseudo "doors", but it doesn't help.
The higher ups called the new layout more "collaborative". We collaborated fine before, now try to squeeze two people into a cube to try to work together. The conversation carries across half the office, disturbing everyone else. The only advantage is I yell across the room to others without getting up where before I had to actually go into the hall (gee, what a plus).
Here is a short list of other complaints (besides noise):
Lighting: I 'm really sensitive to glare from florescent lights, trying to unhook the ones above me isn't an option since others around me prefer to no sit in the dark.
Temperature: Our old offices had adjustable air vents. They really didn't work great, but what little they did was helpful to those who are cold/hot all the time.
Privacy: I know the intimate details of all those how sit around me from their personal phone calls. I've gotten good at talking in code to my wife about personal issues, that's a plus.
Walls: Hard to hang Pictures, whiteboards, posters, calendars, on cube walls.
Have and Have-nots: Some people have offices, some have cubes.
If you can get people to shut up for a few hours a day though sharing an office space is fairly productive
Reminds me of when I worked in an 8 person cubicle office.
I found that coming to work at 5 am allowed me some quality private time to get work done, thinking done, and especially writing. Then, in the early afternoon I'd knock off for some physical activity because my brain was too buzzed.
I dunno about you, but I find that, even more than coding or debugging, writing coherent prose requires a great deal of uninterrupted concentration. Chatter from cubemates is too distracting for such work.
I won't even venture to say how difficult it is to perform any kind of personnel management task if your office is on public display, as it is for a friend of mine. Talk about fishbowls!
I think clustered offices with doors that can be closed or open is a bonus.
Windows rate high in my book, too, probably because I've been depressed at times in offices that didn't have one.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I work in one of these "shared team areas", and I think they are great. Mine has a window and four of us work in one partitioned space in an open plan office. I really like it.
The area is big enough that each of us have rightangle desks with enough space to house probably 6 desktop boxes with 17 inch monitors (I have 3 and a laptop). We all sit with our backs to the center so there is no over looking yet you can easily just spin round on your chair to chat to someone. There are a couple of extra chairs so when people come round to discuss something they can have a seat.
The partions are high enough that you cannot see over them to the other areas when sitting in a chair, this is a good thing, you feel separated but still accessible to just stand up and grab the attention of someone in the next area along. The only problem is people with loud voices and speaker phones, but in general people don't use them too often.
One of the things I really like is the fact that there are offices that you can use if you need a private chat, they are small and can be used by anyone. Each one has enough room for maybe 4 people at a push sitting around a small table, they also have power and network sockets for your laptop, and a speaker phone. I think this is what saves the whole concept, if you need some privacy for whatever reason, or a conference call then you can have one without disturbing everyone. That coupled with nice coffee bars that you can escape to with sofa's can comfy chairs, and grounds you can go for a walk in means you don't feel trapped in some cube nightmare.
Managers have offices, but then you might go to them to discuss your personal problems / problems with co-workers so I think it is fair enough. Difficult to have those sort of discussions in open plan ;)
I have worked in shared offices, and even had my own office, but to be honest I prefer my current open plan arrangement it suites my work very well, it's easy to chat with my friends, I have space around me rather than being shoved in a tiny office and I don't have to put up with the person I shared the office with's music taste ;)
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