nathan_marz_storm nathan_marz_storm-2014 nathan_marz_storm-2014-40 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
Source: html
Introduction: Update: I originally quoted the average price of office space as $36 / square foot / month, where in reality it's per year. So I was accidentally weakening my own argument! The post has been updated to reflect the right number. The "open floor plan" has really taken over tech companies in San Francisco. Offices are organized as huge open spaces with row after row of tables. Employees sit next to each other and each have their own piece of desk space. Now, I don't want to comment on the effectiveness of open floor plans for fields other than my own. But for software development, this is the single best way to sabotage the productivity of your entire engineering team . The problem Programming is a very brain-intensive task. You have to hold all sorts of disparate information in your head at once and synthesize it into extremely precise code. It requires intense amounts of focus. Distractions and interruptions are death to the productivity of a programmer. And an open-floor plan e
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 Update: I originally quoted the average price of office space as $36 / square foot / month, where in reality it's per year. [sent-1, score-0.893]
2 Now, I don't want to comment on the effectiveness of open floor plans for fields other than my own. [sent-7, score-0.787]
3 Even worse than the noise is the fact that you are very easy to interrupt in an open floor plan. [sent-25, score-0.803]
4 It's frequent enough in an open floor plan that even just the potential of that happening hurts my concentration. [sent-28, score-1.176]
5 There's evidence that open plan offices make it more likely for people to get sick . [sent-29, score-0.938]
6 The "collaboration" justification The most common justification I hear about the open floor plan is that it "encourages collaboration". [sent-37, score-1.176]
7 Now it's true, the open floor plan does create the occasional opportunity for collaboration. [sent-38, score-1.176]
8 The average price per square foot per month of an office in San Francisco is $36 / year , or $3 / month. [sent-57, score-0.896]
9 But let's say the average rate is $10 a month, since more expensive rates favor open floor plans, and I want to drive the point home. [sent-58, score-1.05]
10 With an open floor plan, let's say a programmer takes up an average of 6ft x 6ft of space. [sent-60, score-1.003]
11 So the cost of space per programmer per month is 10 * 6 * 6 = $360 / month. [sent-61, score-0.81]
12 Let's say that in a non open-floor plan each programmer requires four times the amount of space as an open-floor plan environment – an average of 12ft x 12ft. [sent-63, score-1.53]
13 In this case, the cost of space per programmer per month results in $1440 / month, making the cost of a programmer including space $11440 / month. [sent-65, score-1.26]
14 So on a per programmer basis, if the open floor plan lowers productivity by less than 9. [sent-69, score-1.598]
15 In my experience working in an open floor plan my productivity is cut by half or worse. [sent-72, score-1.358]
16 Unless my estimates of productivity decrease or space needs are way, way off , the open floor plan is not even close to worth it. [sent-78, score-1.531]
17 But certainly the open floor plan as practiced today is not it. [sent-82, score-1.225]
18 It might be possible to establish a culture that enforces a library-like environment on an open floor plan. [sent-83, score-0.987]
19 Conclusion Another thing that people like about the open floor plan is that it "looks good" and has the "startup feel". [sent-90, score-1.225]
20 The open floor plan really only works when you're really small, when it's essentially equivalent to one of those "5 man offices". [sent-93, score-1.26]
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