I've heard conversations about most MS buildings in Redmond being remodeled to implement open plan offices. Is that true? If so, my deepest condolences to my MS friends and welcome to hell :(
Silicon Valley offices are open models for many years
Why are open plans bad?
omg where do I start
A simple Google search will link you to plenty of articles about how it destroys concentration and collaboration. Of course you can still find articles telling you it improves collaboration, so I guess it might depend on the work and the company culture or maybe it just depends on the people. I think open layouts are the worst.
This will upset ppl who are resting n vesting :D
Yes! First, it gives people accountability in the hours they are working and how they spend their time in the office. Second, it gets people collaborating and communicating as a team instead of over laggy email and docs. It has downsides but seriously no work was getting done with offices.
That first one is actually a negative. If I want to get in the office at 12pm and surf Facebook for an hour that only matters if it impacts results. Managing by attendance policy is lazy. I’ve had both an open office and a small shared office before. The small shared office led to the most productivity and I still had my team within easy distance to talk.
It would be great if mix both office and open floor and let ppl choose their option
I'd choose an office any day. I don't think I've heard people actually choosing open
I don't know about that. I prefer open office when i need guidance and team work. I don't think noise or anything can bother me when i highly focus.
To the people who choose open: have you ever even had the opportunity to try having your own office? Seems more like Stockholm syndrome or something.
I have spent several years working in a private office, and also several years working in an open office. Between the two, I like open offices better when the people in the room are all working on the same project. If the people in the room are working on different projects then it is very distracting and worse than a private office.
No but I know what it feels like. I used to work from a conference room just for fun (Mozilla and my other former employer). Which Mozilla office do you work from? If MV, it wouldn’t be too bad. SF and I think Toronto really suck. The old MV office was really good. The open space wasn’t so bad. Spacious enough. Also desk comes with desk blind instead of separating by monitors in a row.
They way they've done open offices so far in Redmond is not the big huge floors with desks visible from one side of the building to the next. In fact, in most building atrium areas you have no idea that the open environment had been implemented. Aside from the fact that the interior area is very modern looking compared to buildings with very aging layouts. The neighborhoods (as they're called) go from 8-20 people in an area. Often have moveable walls to open up the space if desired to other neighborhoods. Have a small group room (4-6 people for meetings shared with another neighborhood), lots of windows, a small room for 1-2 people to focus work or have a private 1:1. Plenty of people on my team were gung ho about hating it without seeing it, but in reality it's lead to a ton of collaboration and idea sharing that wouldn't have happened in prior single offices. I'd still occasionally love to have my own door and not have people walk behind my chair, but at least it's not the endless sea of callcenter type open space that many companies have setup. That's just beyond dumb to put your devs into.
I think PMs might like it.
I had closed office for a few years. Man, the level of focus I had in there is something I still pine for. With open office, all I get is tinnus
True. It has started happening in India. We seem to like it as well.
It has. I'm not sure everyone is happy about the move to the temporary campus though
SSKC campus is good! We now have large airpurifiers also.