Comments on: Jason Fried: Working closely together ain’t productive

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 21:40:35 +0000

Just to add to the “It depends on the kinds of work…” comments: It depends on your industry. A software product company’s business goals are to produce products. But your standard corporation’s business goal’s are not to make their programmers effective… it is to keep the business running, whatever business that may be.

There is a lot more production support and maintenance involved in reaching that goal, which requires not only communication, but interruption. If a system breaks, the programmers will need to drop their projects to fix it. The business needs do not always align with programmer preferences.

So while we can discuss what the programmers want until all hours of the night, that doesn’t make it the right answer.

By: Lulu

Lulu — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 02:07:23 +0000

This is why mid level sound buffered cubicle walls are great. It allows privacy and quiet and noise buffering, while still allowing open conversations.

In my office with an open floor plan, headphones are looked down upon ( I think it has something to do with everyone being loud and noisy New Orleanians), so it’s impossible to find a way to block out all the distractions. The work requires a bit of focus or else you can lose what you’re doing, so all those distractions can really lead to a huge head ache and non-productiveness.

Luckily I think the office manager wizened up to this and has ordered cubicle walls…I can’t wait.

And maybe it’s just me, but does anyone else notice that everyone has to eat loud food with crinkly bags while at work?

By: Alan

Alan — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 01:35:31 +0000

I totally agree. Productivity has a lot to do with focus and we simply can’t focus on our work if we are open to distractions. Socializing can be good to our work, but we also have to do it in the right time.

By: Will

Will — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:14:58 +0000

I think the important considerations are the kind of work being done, the culture of the workplace, and the sensibilities of the individual workers. It is overly simplifying to say that either an open-plan office or closed no-interruption plans is better for all offices.

As an example, I’m a software engineer for one of the top video game developers in the world, and due to the extremely highly collaborative and creative nature of our work, I’ve found open-plan offices almost always working much better than closed plans. Everyone is a vital source of ideas in game development, and everyone’s work has innumerable complicated interactions with everyone else’s. As a result, much more time is saved by everyone being in range of any conversations going on than is lost from the more frequent interruptions.

It’s true that oftentimes we put our headphones on or otherwise make it known that we’re deep in code and shouldn’t be interrupted, but this flexibility is an advantage of the open-plan. The times that someone overhearing an open discussion and jumping in to add a vital contribution are unpredictable - if that person was in an office then no one would have ever known that the vital contribution had been missed. The times that need deeper focus, programmers can cut themselves out of the open office for just that necessary bit of work, without losing the open-plan benefits the rest of the time.

By: Pamela

Pamela — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 03:39:05 +0000

I agree. There are times when things need serious attention and we can’t risk someone disturbing us all the time. It’s better if we have our own office.

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:10:51 +0000

Bloomberg’s model works when you are the supreme dictator who can order everybody else to shut the F**K up so you can concentrate on your work.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:44:30 +0000

More office planners and managers need to learn this lesson.

http://craiglp.wordpress.com/2006/08/25/the-myth-of-the-collaborative-cube-farm/

By: t.

t. — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 18:48:49 +0000

Michael Bloomberg, NYC’s mayor, first thing he did when he got into office was tear down the walls and keep an open space office. It has worked for him so far.

By: Suan Gee Pebble Tan

Suan Gee Pebble Tan — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 12:25:00 +0000

I used to worked in a theatre company where it was divided into 2 levels. Production office on the ground level, and Administrative office on the upper level. I think it is good to separate them as we all know, production side tends to be very noisy as we try to find things, move or store things here etc. The administrative office has howver not so much of these activities and tends to be more quiet. It needs to be more quiet as it gets all the enquiry calls directed to them. So I think it all boils down to what kind of work we are dealing with. I wouldn’t want anyone to tap me on the shoulder or yell out my name when I am concentrating on budgeting or scheduling as it breaks any concentration or thinking I have.

By: Angela

Angela — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 06:26:46 +0000

I interned at a weekly journal where most of the office was like that. Only the editor had an office with a door that could shut. It was insane—just noise and motion and conversation everywhere. I couldn’t focus at ALL. I couldn’t understand how anybody could.