What is your preferred office size/layout?

Question

This is a question about your preferred environment for software development.

We recently moved into new offices, and before they were planned, we had a little poll among all the developers what their preferred office size was (this is Europe, so no cubicles, we are used to separate offices ;-) ). The result was that, before we moved, most developers seemed to favor small offices (1-2 people) over larger ones.

We were able to create an office layout with differently sized offices in the end, and now that we moved, everybody seems to prefer the larger variants (4-5 people).

So what is your preferred office layout and size? Do you prefer private offices or do you prefer layouts that enhance communication?

Answer 1

Personally, working heavily in a team-based environment almost requires having 3-5 developers in an open space. If you continually have the same people working on the same stuff, its a godsend. Otherwise, if everyone is doing their own thing, there exists absolutely no benefit (and will probably only serve as another outlet for distraction).

My answer: It depends. :P

Answer 2

Personally, I like having a one-person office when I need it for privacy, interviews and the like, but I spend most of my time with other programmers (3-5) in a cubicle arrangement in a separate area. It's much easier to ask for/provide help when you don't have to pick up the phone or physically walk somewhere else.

That said, if I lost my private office entirely in favor of a cubicle-only arrangement, my job satisfaction would drop dramatically.

Answer 3

It may sound crazy, but I like having close seating. It can be distracting, but the interaction among team members is SOOOO much better. I worked for about a year with 7 other in a small conference room. We had 2 sets of 4 desks. Sort of like this except a little bigger.

Answer 4

I'm for 1 or 2 person offices. Any more than that and I find there are too many distractions from conversations. Of course I live in the U.S. and cubicle farms are rampant.

Answer 5

Do you prefer private offices or do you prefer layouts that enhance communication?

Yes.

At my current job I get a mix of both. Three days of the week I work in an open-plan office that houses 3-5 developers. Two days of the week I work from home, where I have my own private office. I've come to regard this as pretty close to ideal. If I were designing an office from scratch I would make it a combination of open plan team rooms for 3-6 developers plus "quiet rooms" where 1-2 developers can focus.

Answer 6

I've been a proponent of rooms with space for a team of 4-6 people around the outside, and a small team conference/work area with projector/whiteboard in the center. The individual work spaces should be separated enough to be relatively quiet, and the room itself should have a door that closes (and generally is closed).

This ensures that interruptions are either infrequent or highly relevant. It encourages simple communication within the team while still discouraging most distractions.

Answer 7

I prefer to maximize team communication and minimize disturbances. So, be able to talk and listen to the people that are actually working on the same thing as I am doing, and still be able to concentrate without having headphones on my head.

If you find yourself or your team mates needing to use headphones to minimize disturbances, you don't really have active team communication in your office.

So yes, I prefer layouts that enhance communication and the larger variants (4-5 people, even up to 11) is excellent. Just make sure to keep people in the same area that are doing similar things.

Google the term 'osmotic communication' to get a much better reasons than I can provide as to why your layout choice is most likely a proper one.

Answer 8

I'm really interested by questions like this, but (understandably), any minute it'll get closed/voted down into oblivion etc, as it's not technically a programming question.

I'm starting to think we need a website like StackOverflow for questions that relate to programmers but aren't about programming!

And for the record - I like to have a space where 3 or 4 people can sit so that they can swivel their chairs around to face each other and discuss things, and swivel back around again to their own little world. Where you're not so close that the other person's earbuds distract you. A couple of windows and natural light, a couple of whiteboards, a well-stocked bookcase and a bit of space around each person. That makes it easy for two people to work together at someone's desk when necessary, but you still have that space from each other when you need it.

In my experience, any more then 4-5 people in a room will guarantee that someone is always being distracted by the other events (impromptu meetings, banter etc).

If you can keep the number down, the chances of them all working on stuff for useful periods of a time seem to go right up. :-)

Answer 9

A private office is best, but I like to have a place setup where several people can go and work together in the same room effectively.

Answer 10

I prefer a quiet environment where I don't have to listen to the endless coughing, wheezing, phone-talking, and potato-chip crunching from everyone else in the office. I just haven't found any techniques to block out all those things so I wear headphones quite a bit.

Honestly some of the descriptions above terrify me because I would lose my 'safe-zone' where I can go and actually get work done.

Answer 11

By total coincidence, my preferred office size/layout exactly matches the size/layout of my house.

Answer 12

private cube with my stuff in it and all the co-workers quite close by. But never a cube farm where there are rows and rows of identical cubes in a giant hall.

Answer 13

I want a spacious office. I prefer to have my own cubicle so that I would have some privacy while working.