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Offices vs. Cubes For Developers?

Posted by timothy on from the what-about-cells dept.

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?

2 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. all in all its just another brick in the wall by Bazzargh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Funny seeing people demanding fortresses of solitude. Actually, there have been studies of better working environments and isolation tanks didn't rate.

    Peopleware (by DeMarco and Lister -http://www1.fatbrain.com/asp/bookinfo/bookinfo.as p?theisbn=0932633439&vm= ) describes an IBM effort in this direction which ended up with people working in shared team areas (not fully open plan, not tiny shared cubes either) with backs to the centre so that each others screens could be seen.

    More topically, Extreme Programming actually has quite a lot to say on office layout. You can see one example here: http://www.xprogramming.com/xpmag/c3space.htm

    I have to agree to some extent with the naysayers though. Interruptions to flow can be a disaster in shared spaces if there is no check on interactions. If you can get people to shut up for a few hours a day though sharing an office space is fairly productive.

    -Baz

  2. Re:cube farms!! by madburn · · Score: 5, Interesting
    We used cubicle parts to make "pits". We created largish areas out of cubicle walls and made sure the entrance was rather small (not an entirely open side) and was not accessible from major traffic flow. Inside the pits we would have inner half-walls between every two or three developers. There was a large space in the center so nobody was too close to the other side. There were many advantages:
    • kept marketing/sales/management out (mostly)
    • allowed small developer groups to interact
    • center space was good for ad hoc design sessions/updates/meetings/etc.
    • built a good sense of team instead of a feeling of isolated drones
    People wore headphones to do music and we avoided giving everyone their own phone, instead having shared phones. It was pretty productive.