Shape of the Office Work Environment

It’s an old question and an important one. I am amazed at how many people don’t understand the importance of a correct office layout or more importantly: how do different office arrangements affect the worker?

This question has risen to more importance recently because more and more people do “intellect” work. It is the sort of work which involves mental creativity and a significant thinking. It is very hard to measure such work and a lot of flawed techniques have surfaced over time. The worst one was attempting to measure programmer output via LoC (Line of Codes) churned out.

Intellect work is done by programmers, designers, architects etc. Their work has an inseparable artistic aspect and everyone has their own way of doing the same thing. In the words of my Electronics professor Dr. Mansoor; “When there is no fixed way of going about a task, it is art”.

So, if we are going to claim that certain work environments are better than the others, we need some way of measuring productivity against different environments. How do we do that?

The Big Deal

In their landmark paper titled “Programmer performance and the effects of the workplace” (ACM paid registeration required), researchers Tom DeMarc and Tim Lister empirically found what we have believed all along:

Noise is the #1 factor for reduced productivity.

Read that line until you memorize it. Get it through your head. If your people need “quiet time” to work, think, author, design etcetera then noise is going to be the number one killer.

Tom & Tim gave hundreds of programmers the same task to perform. All programmers had to work from their respective organizations which had a varied level of noise. This served as a benchmark. What did they find out?

 The-top performers’ space is quieter, more private, better protected from  interruption, and there is more of it.

In other words, a quiet, private, noise-free environment brings out the best in people. In their groundbreaking book Peopleware: Productive Projects and Team, Tom & Tim found how do developers spend their time:

The”Working Alone” 30% is when the worker is generating their individual output and is perhaps the most important part of their day. It is therefore paramount that we find a way to protect the worker from noise while they are working alone and yet allow them to work collaboratively. How do we solve this problem?

But First, a Lesson in Architecture

The great Architect of our time Christopher Alexander in 1977 wrote a groundbreaking book A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. This work is so significant that it forms the basis of Design Patterns that we use in Software Engineering (popularized by the Gang of Four). Alexander, strongly believed that the users of the environment know more than the architect about how the environment can serve them best. Based upon his collaborative research, he came up with a number of Patterns. I have selected a few which I think are relevant to office layouts:

Pattern 183: Workspace Enclosures

Conflict: People cannot work effectively if their workspace is too enclosed or too exposed. A good workspace strikes the balance.

Resolution: Build each workspace an area of at least 60 square feet. Build walls and windows round each workspace to such an extent that their total area (counting windows at one-half) is 50 to 75 per cent of the total enclosure that would be there if all four walls around the 60 square feet were solid. Let the front of the workspace be open for at least 8 feet in front, always into a larger space. Place the desk so that the person working at it has a view out either to the front or to the side. If there are other people working nearby, arrange the enclosure so that the person has a sense of connection to two or three others; but never put more than eighth workspaces with view or earshot of one another.

Pattern 146: Flexible Office Space

Conflict: Is it possible to create a kind of space which is specifically tuned to the needs of people working, and yet capable of an infinite number of various arrangements and combinations within it?

Resolution: Lay out the office space as wings of open space, with free standing columns around their edges, so they define half-private and common spaces opening into one another. Set down enough columns so that people can fill them in over the years, in many different ways- but always in a semipermanent fashion.

If you happen to know the working group before you build the space, then make it more like a house, more closely tailored to their needs. In either case, create a variety of space throughout the office- comparable in variety to the different sizes and kinds of space in a large old house.

Pattern 152: Half-Private Office

Conflict:What is the right balance between privacy and connection in office work?

Resolution: Avoid closed off, separate, or private offices. make every workroom, whether it is for a group of two or three people or for one person, half-open to the other workgroups and the world immediately beyond it. At the front, just inside the door, make comfortable sitting space, with the actual workspace(s) away from the door, and further back.

There are other key patterns as well like number 80: Self-Governing Workshops and Offices and number 148 Small Work Groups. These were some of the patterns that I thought were interesting and relevant out of a total 253. The patterns serve as a guide. There is a lot of creative flexibility in the actual implementation.

The User Opinion

I asked a number of people from my Alma Mater (pretty much all engineers) the following question:

What is your preferred work environment out of the following:

1. Open-floor or open-seating environment. Everybody sits in one big area.
2. Cubicle farm. Tall cubicles for noise reduction.
3. Private single person offices.
4. Private 2-3 person offices.

I received a mix response; everybody talked about their personal need and experience. Here is the summary:

1. Almost all younger engineers said they would like to work in Open-floor/seating plans or open-cubicle because this allows them to see what the whole company is doing, it increases communication for seeking help and guidance. Most young ones are strongly against office divisions along bureaucratic lines.
2. The highest preference was for cubicles. Most had the opinion that cubes allow for semi-privacy.

Point 2 surprised me because the mere term “cubcile farm” is considered derogatory and Dilbertesque.

Conclusions & Recommendations

Human nature is complex and deep. People are unique and different. There is no “one-size-fit-all” strategy but perhaps we can boil things down to a generally acceptable median:

1. People who work on the same project should be grouped together physically in a single office. This allows them to overlap their collaborative time with each other.
2. Use the patterns listed above to establish the internal office structure
3. In the ideal world, everyone has atleast 60 square feet of space
4. For larger group-based activities, huddle or conference rooms work effectively
5. Management functions don’t suffer from noise interruptions as much as the intellect functions do. So, if they aren’t busy plotting world domination they can be treated just the same.
6. Bonus: Two monitors per programmer is a significant boost in productivity.
7. I’m not a fan of individual private offices. It reduces spontaneous communication and creativity. YMMV.

What is your opinion? How is your work environment and how does it affect you? What would be ideal for you?

Muhammed Nasrullah is the CEO of ByteSense (Pvt.) Limited. We make custom technology solutions and are software specialists.