What makes for a productive software development office environment? How much “close” company is too much, and how much isolation and quiet is simply too much? When is an interruption welcome and needed, and when is it a mental reboot that sets back focus by 15-30 minutes each and every time it hits? When is management’s new ‘space plan’ about creating great teamwork, and when is it about seeing how many people can be crammed into the smallest number of square feet of costly grade A office space?
As near as I can tell, there are no absolute answers to these questions, just a a series of tradeoffs that each manager needs to evaluate in putting together a plan for how the work environment for their team best goes together. But while there may not be final answers, there sure are fads and trends. Let me give you a hint – the trend is not heading towards more square footage per person in most places, although there is still a movement afoot to keep the noise to a dull roar in some of the more technically intense shops. Cara Garretson of ComputerWord put together a nice piece that talks about where these trends are heading just now. The piece is worth a look.
Cubicle wars: Best and worst office setups for tech workers
Open office layouts are all the rage these days. But is that how IT folks work best?
By Cara Garretson
ComputerWord 2011
Computerworld – Consider the modern office layout: Open floor plan, lots of common space flooded with natural light, clusters of “pods” with low partitions (or none), all designed to encourage teamwork, boost productivity and — management hopes — improve the bottom line.
That type of office layout looks great on the company’s Web site, and most likely the creative team loves it, but does IT? After all, many high-tech employees prefer to work in solitude, or at least in an environment quiet enough to foster intense concentration for significant chunks of time. Are these trendy open office layouts torture to the techie brain?
To be sure, Web 2.0 has birthed new types of technology employees who depend on — even thrive by — working in groups. Web designers and developers, project managers, system architects, even some software developers are embracing office layouts that encourage interaction. Practitioners of the Agile Software Development movement have even come up with templates for office furniture arrangements that are physical embodiments of the Agile principles of openness and collaboration (see example, below).
On the other hand, asking programmers or network administrators to do their jobs in an open space where noise, distractions and interruptions abound can be akin, for some of them at least, to departmental decimation.
Read all from Garretson’s article here.
Tags: agile, Agile Development, change, change management, communication, Cubes, Leadership, management, Project Manager, project planning, project team, software development, Space Plans
