Software Engineering discussion

In parts of this section, the book is showing its age (email has mostly replaced telephone calls in the office, so no one cares about diverting their phone). But the plight of cubeville hits close to home for me. Our space was originally designed for a production floor, so it is one giant room divided up into cubicles. At least the cubicle walls are over six feet tall, as recommended by the authors. Having read this chapter, I'm going to push management to experiment with different floor plans that follow more of the guidelines.
One note on their productivity and environment studies: as pointed out in "Making Software" (a book focused on using research and facts to answer software development questions), the study in this book measured developers on lone development tasks-there was no collaboration. So it's not surprising that their data concludes that privacy increases productivity. "Making Software" cites another study that showed that highly communal workspaces (with a few private spaces for when they are really needed) work equally well. But they do point out that typical cubicles offer the worst of both worlds: distraction without easy collaboration.

Tom wrote: "In parts of this section, the book is showing its age (email has mostly replaced telephone calls in the office, so no one cares about diverting their phone)..."

Telephone calls now are made via VoIP instead of PSTN.
This is the difference :)

Sergey wrote: "Telephone calls now are made via VoIP instead of PSTN.
This is the difference :) "

VoIP or PSTN, does your phone ring that much? I get maybe one call per week. Email, IM, or face-to-face are the preferred communication methods where I work.

The "cubeville" comment led me to another thought on this: Fast Company 11/2011 has an article about whether to hire degreed software engineers at all (or gifted, dropout hackers). Here's a quote:

"Software is thought of as a science," Bahat says, sitting in a conference room painted to look like the underwater city of BioShock games. "But what if it's not a science? What if it's more like a craft? Or even an art? If you wanted to hire somebody who could be a great craftsperson, you wouldn't look for somebody with a PhD in that craft."

I think some folks feel like we are more craft artisans than cogs in big corporate environments, so cubvilles don't feel appropriate...

see: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/1...

Accompanying this article is a sidebar, "We Don't Need No Education" showcasing famous CEO dropouts including Michael Dell, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

Some random thoughts about this part:

Programmers spend about 1/3 of their lives in an office. It must be habitable.

I totally believe in the psychology of flow concept, and that constant interruptions kill productivity.

Is "cubicle" every used in a positive sense?

I like the attempt at an analytical view of the economics of space decisions.

Today's Facebook/Twitter/eMail/Text Messages are yesterday's phone/paging interruptions.

At IBM, we spent a lot of time and money making sure that offices were configured to the right size and location for a person's rank.

I would like to see more discussion on the pros/cons of treating space as a promotion perk.

The people without window offices usually complain that they have no view. The people with window offices usually complain that it is too hot or too cold.

I think that proper ergonomics are another very important factor in office design for programmers, but I didn't see this mentioned in this part of the book.

My worst office experience: Me, a non-smoker, forced to share an office with an in-office smoker.

Good comments Brad!

I think this part contains many good and interesting observations. My favorite chapter is Taking Umbrella Steps - I enjoyed reading about design patterns, which helped me to take a different view on working environment. Also this chapter contains few interesting facts and valid suggestions.

I’ve never worked in office with a door, but I have worked in open office environment and “cubeville” with 4 and 6 ft walls. To me both have benefits and disadvantages. I don’t think any of them is perfect or very bad.

If I had an opportunity to design my own office I would have the office walls made of a pair of transparent and white material blinds (like window blinds) hanging from a ceiling. Basically, when blinds are closed they would make my office a sound proof (provided blinds are designed that way), when open I could hear everything from outside. I could pull them up to make my office an open office. Also, I would like to have an arm chair in my office
:)

Brad, I’m wondering what offices look like at IBM provided that company spends lots of money and time to configure them.

Tom, I’m wondering how much your management is willing to experiment with floor plans in your organization? Please post update if you succeed.

Bonnie, thanks for a web-link. I found an interesting video on Changing Education Paradigm in one of the comments to that article: http://trendguardian.blogspot.com/201... .

When I first started with IBM in the mid-80s (in other words, this probably has no relevance today), I shared an 8x10 office with an officemate. It had floor-to-ceiling walls and a door, but the doors were rarely closed, except by managers. Upon promotion, one would progress through defined sizes/sharing arrangements, with the ultimate office size of 12x12 of your own. There were also specified desks, which were plain top for newbies, graduating to artificial woodgrain for higher levels of promotion. An extra credenza also came with promotion. Window offices tended to go to more senior employees, and were prized and occasionally created conflict.

Space and offices were managed as more of a status item, rather than based on actual functional need. As a result, when there were reorganizations, managers spent a fair amount of time making sure that everyone had the space and furniture that they were entitled to, even if it meant calling in facilities to reconfigure the office spaces, which meant moving walls, dealing with network and power and telephone connections, etc. I never saw the costs of this, but it must have been very expensive.

Looking back on all this, and ignoring the status factor, I would have been happy with just a good computer, a good chair, good temperature control, and an interesting office mate.

Thanks, Brad. I experienced déjà vu while reading your reply, but then I realized that I’ve seen this before at ESRX.