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Cubicles a Giant Mistake
J to the D writes "Apparently even the designer of the cubicle believes now that they are a bad idea." From the article: "After years of prototyping and studying how people work, and vowing to improve on the open-bullpen office that dominated much of the 20th century, Propst designed a system he thought would increase productivity (hence the name Action Office). The young designer, who also worked on projects as varied as heart pumps and tree harvesters, theorized that productivity would rise if people could see more of their work spread out in front of them, not just stacked in an in-box."
I tend to agree, although don't forget that cubicles are a huge imporvement over rows and rows of desks with zero privacy whatsoever. Personally, I'd rather have an office, or at least a cubicle-sized space with a door I can close. It's very distracting for some people to hear everyone's phone conversations, music choices, etc. When I work on a problem, I tend to go lock myself in a lab or some other closed space so I can have "alone time" and carefully consider things.
:-)
It wouldn't be hard at all to give current cubicles full-sized walls and doors. I think it would greatly improve productivity. Think of how many times you've had to listen to people talking two feet away from you while you're trying to concentrate.
One of the main barriers to adoption is the fact that you can't oversee your staff like you can in a cubicle farm or open office. But then again, if you have to constantly watch them, do you really want them as employees?
I don't think it's practical to give everyone a corner office, but everyone _could_ have a window.
In Peopleware, Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister observe that work better in offices with windows. When this is pointed out, management usually says "sure, but it's impossible to give everyone a room with a window."
DeMarco and Lister's reply is that in fact every hotel in the world manages to do this.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Now, I'm a bit smarter than that. All my surfing is logged on my home computer. My home computer is my proxy. Easy enough to do, though I did study CS for many years. Funny, though, because the system admin wanted me to run a spyware remover on my desktop at work, that I've used for two years now. It came back with only one cookie that it thought was set to last to long. He was stunned. Not bad for all that time here.
Check out the article here by Kathy Sierra (of Head First fame). She quotes neuroscientist Elizabeth Gould of Princeton saying "complex surroundings create a complex brain". Basically, a monotonous environment causes the brain to stop producing new neurons. For years, it was thought that we were born with all the neurons we would ever have, largely because all studies of primate brains involved keeping the monkeys in cages -- an environment that inhibits neuron formation and growth! Now research shows that a stimulating environment fosters neuron formation and reduces brain stress. Time to bust out the electric screwdriver!
Just junk food for thought...
At the risk of drawing derision on financial software development, we couldn't possibly do what we do with offices. When the trading desk has a problem with your software system and you're bleeding money, it's battle stations. Much easier to have a big wide open room with everyone right there madly working on the solution. More sources of input, less redundant communication. The benefits of that are too good compared to the benefits of an office -- you just have to learn how to concentrate in the middle of a battlefield, sort of like that guy in the Seven Samurai who makes himself sleep when the time's available (and only when it's available!).
Course, we don't use cubes either, just a wide open floor with desks.
Anyone who works in a job that requires any kind of concentration (software development being the most obvious example) will, given the opportunity, enter a state of "flow" where they are wholly committed to the work they're doing.
Yeah, that's nice in theory. In practice, the people most dedicated to The Flow (tm), are the antisocial, uncooperative nitwits who hole themselves up in their offices for 8+ hours each day, only to turn out piles of un-reviewed, un-documented, poorly-specified crap (whether code or otherwise).
With no exceptions, the best tech workers I know are balanced, social people who prefer not to hole up in their offices. The best coding environment I ever worked in was a room of 6 developers, separated by bookshelves, with small break-out rooms available for truly private conversations. Of course, you do actually have to like your coworkers for a setup like that to work, but I digress....
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Actually, that isn't 'flow'. It's Attention Deficit Disorder. It's very, very common among computer programmers, as intelligent people with ADD will self select CS because the instant feedback gives an immediate reward for concentration, and therefore they feel more successful at computer work than other endeavors.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocus