As much as I love working from home or an office or whatever, team productivity is better when people who work together share physical space.
Define "team".
I fully believe that a co-located 5-9 person team in an open space can be a good thing.
I also fully believe that a co-located 20-30 person department composed of 4-6 teams, all in a single open space is a complete disaster.
And don't get me started on the travesty that is the new Facebook space.
To me, the perfect solution is neither individual offices nor open plans, but rather 5-9 person team spaces with floor-to-ceiling walls and a door, plus breakout rooms.
> To me, the perfect solution is neither individual offices nor open plans, but rather 5-9 person team spaces with floor-to-ceiling walls and a door, plus breakout rooms.
This can be a pretty good solution for a well-gelled 5-9 person team. But I don't buy into the mindset that this is always the natural unit of software development. Some problems need larger groups -- that probably don't fit the "gelled team" model as well -- while others are perfectly amenable to one or two people coding away behind closed doors. Why is there so much focus on "teams" at the moment?
Define "team".
I fully believe that a co-located 5-9 person team in an open space can be a good thing.
I also fully believe that a co-located 20-30 person department composed of 4-6 teams, all in a single open space is a complete disaster.
And don't get me started on the travesty that is the new Facebook space.
To me, the perfect solution is neither individual offices nor open plans, but rather 5-9 person team spaces with floor-to-ceiling walls and a door, plus breakout rooms.