Complexity is the path to the dark side
Open space is not evil
20 Aug 2018Haven’t you heard that open space is evil?
Somebody asked me this on the internet recently.
No, I haven’t. We have an open space, and everything’s fine, everything works.
Let’s figure it out.
Arguments against
First, let me honestly list what people told me. The arguments are quite reasonable, I must say:
- An open space is full of constant noise and movement. Somebody walks by, somebody talks.
- If somebody says something, it’s either funny or important. Either way, it grabs your attention.
- Sometimes people start discussions right there (it’s an open space, after all!) and drag everyone around into them, completely breaking the flow.
- Headphones don’t help.
- There’s a constant feeling that you’re being watched, that your back is unprotected.
- Small distractions turn into big ones. Somebody started talking - you listened. Then you spend 15 minutes trying to get back to what you were doing. 5 minutes later you realize you’re out of the flow anyway, so you might as well go make some coffee. You come back and start getting into the task from scratch. But first, of course, you need to check your email, Facebook and chats…
- Those who use the pomodoro technique know: half of the pomodoros have to be cancelled because of distractions.
And the main argument:
Outside of work, kids, chatty ladies, queues and public transport don’t bother me at all, because at that moment I have plenty of brain capacity to spare. But when I have a hard task and need 100% of my capacity, and I keep getting knocked out of the flow, my productivity drops by an order of magnitude.
And a final question:
What’s good about an open space, apart from being cheap?
The problem is exaggerated
At first, all of this seemed a bit childish to me.
OK, noise. So maybe just don’t shout across the whole office? Not exactly rocket science.
Alright, I can understand the ears. But the eyes? You get distracted when you see somebody walking by? And when you see the walls around you, you don’t? What about the sun shining through the window? Or the letters flickering on your screen?
Personally, running kids, chatty ladies, people in queues and in public transport annoy me a thousand times more than my colleagues. You don’t have to love people. But there’s no need to make a problem out of thin air either.
Still, the argument about “100% of brain capacity for a hard task” is fair. I won’t argue with that. If a person sits alone, in headphones, solving a hard task - yes, any distraction costs them a lot.
But that’s exactly the key word: alone.
It’s different for us
At Codeborne we do pair programming.
And this is a completely different way to fight losing focus - in my opinion, much more effective than walls and headphones.
You constantly work on a task together with your partner, you discuss ideas and next steps together. If one of you gets distracted, say, by a phone call, the other quickly helps them get back on track: “So, where were we? Right, this test is failing, let’s look at it”. No 15 minutes to “get back into the flow” - the context hasn’t gone anywhere, your partner is holding it.
And “checking email, since I’m distracted anyway” doesn’t really work either, when there’s a person sitting next to you waiting for you.
So the problem of “somebody gets easily distracted” just doesn’t exist in a pair. Everyone is in the flow all the time. Productivity is through the roof.
And by the way, in a pair you’re talking all the time yourself. So a quiet background hum of pairs discussing their tasks is the norm, not a nuisance. It doesn’t bother you at all, because you only listen to your partner and don’t even notice the others.
So what’s good about an open space?
No, cheapness has nothing to do with it. In an open space, everyone is close by. You can quickly ask the neighbouring pair a question. You can overhear somebody discussing a problem you solved yesterday, and give them a hint. You can see who’s free and who’s busy with what. It’s easy to switch pairs.
All this works only if your team is used to talking to each other, rather than everyone sitting in their own burrow.
And of course, there’s the basic human rule: “don’t disturb people over trifles”. Those who want to chat go to the kitchen. There are always others taking a break there. Those who also came there to rest and defocus. People you won’t disturb with your gossip or a joke. People you can tell about yesterday’s Devclub.
Summary
The problem is not the open space. The problem is the “everyone on their own, in headphones, leave me alone” way of working.
If your team works like that - maybe you really do need separate offices.
But if you work in pairs - an open space won’t get in your way. Quite the opposite.