Open space office

Today I would like to talk about open space for developers. On the surface, it looks like a great idea. It is open, you can easily chat with people who sit next to you. It is easier to approach any person because there are no doors in cubicles or offices. Everything looks good, rainbows and unicorns.

But in fact, it is one of the worst things managers can do to their teams. If your manager suggests this, then try to convince them to change their mind and be extremely persistent. If your management will still do it, then run and don’t look back. And let me explain why.

Software engineers are people that solve problems. And very often they solve very complex problems. That requires a lot of time and a lot of concentration. And most of that time must be spent in a single chunk. Any distraction and you have to start pretty much over.

You probably read some of my crash investigations. Most of them seem very easy and obvious. But very often it is not the case. Most of the time I work like a detective, paying attention to every single detail, collecting and analyzing any evidence.

And during the process, I keep a lot of different facts in my head. I went into a special high-concentration mode where I concentrate all my attention on my task and all other things got second priority. It takes time to get into this mode and any distraction will break my concentration and I have to start concentrating again. It is faster than from the beginning but still takes a lot of time.

The same happened when I’m working on bugs, or issues with design or architecture. I need to understand all details in full and then think about how that can be fixed with the safest fix. And I need to make sure that fix will actually make the application better.

To summarize, a lot of time developers need to concentrate and the open space office is excellent at ruining that concentration. In fact, it is harder to create something worse than open space unless it is a construction site or shopping mall. And let me explain why the open office is so horrible.

When I sit in my personal office or cubicle, I can close the door to let people know that I’m busy. It is a typical setting in many companies and it is well understood. When I sit in open space there is no way to signal something like that. And in general offices or cubicles are less welcoming in general.

As a result, everybody can come to you and ask about anything. It is much easier to turn to your neighbor and ask instead of writing them an email or message. I know that it is bad but I also do that in the open office because it is easier.

And it is not only for work-related stuff. Your neighbor can show you a funny picture or video. Your neighbor can ask you about something in your life or share something from their life. You may hear some discussion nearby and you will participate in it because it is a hot subject.

The open office is very noisy. There are no walls and sound travels great distances. People talk to each other or over the phone. People can have meetings with people from other offices and everybody else can hear it. Sometimes discussions are getting emotional.

Some people are just loud. I meant their natural voice is very loud. But they also need to make calls and they annoy everybody around. And I’m sure every company with more than 10 developers has one person like that.

I’m usually trying to use headphones and listen to loud music to kill that noise. Then people who sit close to me started complaining that I listen to loud music and annoy them. Or sometimes I may tap my fingers on the table to the beat of the music. I didn’t hear it because I’m in headphones, but others do and complain about it. As a result, to reduce office noise I’m creating my own noise.

Some people do a lot of strange sounds that are totally fine to them but greatly annoy others. For example, I know a person who sneezes very loudly and the sound is quite unusual. And it is really annoying to some people. They understand that it is his natural sneezing sound but it still pisses them off.

As another example, I have a person who is constantly spin spinner when he is thinking and he is thinking a lot. It may sound like nothing but trust me when you are thinking about a hard-to-solve problem, that sound became annoying very quickly.

All of the above things just kill concentration and in some cases irritate people and as a result, it takes longer to finish tasks, there are more bugs in code, and I would say some bad designs can also be attributed to the open office environment.

And it is not only about concentration. Constant noise has its own toll on people. They are much more tired at the end of the day, they are easier to get more hostile, and in general, it is recognized as a health issue. When I’m too early or too late at work I feel that difference.

For example, during Covid times, our company switched to remote work and we had natural fear that productivity would tank. But in fact, our productivity grew and grew quite substantially. We started and finished quite complex and challenging projects.

And I think this is because there is no easy way to distract someone. If I want somebody's attention then I have to write an email or send a message to communicate. When that person has time to respond they will respond. Obviously, most people will not respond immediately when they are solving a complex problem.

I personally could work for 12 hours and I don’t feel exhausted or tired at the end of the day. I worked pretty much the whole day with short breaks. And most of the time I worked 7 days per week and I feel good.

Some see that meeting rooms are supposed to solve that problem, but they also have a bunch of own problems. I will not talk about them here, but they just make it better at the expense of the time of everybody involved. And they didn’t solve an issue and just make it less bad.

And if you are the manager then the best you can do for your team is to have separate offices for each developer. You will see that productivity will increase, and people will be less aggressive and annoyed. Remember that most developers are introverts and they don’t need constant communication. Some of them don’t need any communication at all. And trust me, you will see that the productivity of your team will grow.

I hope it will help someone.