Cubicle-less silliness
December 3rd, 2007 by Benjamin KuoThe Mercury News posted an article this morning on how companies in Silicon Valley are dumping cubicles for “open” offices. Having worked closely with many software, hardware, marketing, and sales teams–and having endured “open office” layouts a few times myself–I just shake my head this.
Having been both in the trenches and managing teams, I found consistently in my own experience that — particularly with the intense focus necessary in hardware and software engineering–having a quiet place to work, without distractions, is a key part of having a productive team. Open office spaces — although they might be great for times when you’re working on very collaborative projects or “creative” endeavors — are always loud, always distracting, and terrible for focusing on things. I recall spending lots of times shuffling people around offices, to try to make sure that the noisier folks — for example, sales people making sales calls — were not someplace they would be distracting the productive software engineers. Even within an engineering group, having an open plan makes it difficult to work — for example, if the guy next to you keeps pestering you with questions, your boss keeps glancing over your shoulder because he’s sitting behind you, etc. Plus, there’s that person who is now a great buddy with a desk next to yours, who you have been trying to avoid all year at the watercooler because they just have to tell you that story about their weekend one more time.
