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Engineering efficiency in open plan vs seperate offices

Andy Millar
Just for once I'm working in an open plan office *. I've been, from my point of view, very lucky (or rather, very determined!) - for the last two years I've worked from home, and for 15 years prior to that I have had a succession of private offices (in a company where the official policy was that only the president and VPs had private offices!)


HOW DOES ANYONE GET ANY WORK DONE IN AN OPEN PLAN OFFICE??? Sorry, that just burst out smiley


Now, thinking back to a LONG time ago when I was working in development teams of maybe 2-3-4-5 engineers it did actually seem to work well for us, we could share and bounce around ideas, however when I started managing the same team in a large office space it was clear that those discussions were also extremely disruptive to anyone else in the same office area **. The best arrangement I've worked in for team engineering was probably when we had 5 of us in a single (fairly soundproof) office.


Equally, having been involved in business management, I am very well aware that large open plan offices are cheap and flexible, but personally I'm suspicious of the impact on overall productivity, at least for engineering functions.


I haven't even started discussing getting the air conditioning set right for everybody...


Does anyone here have any views? It's a serious point.


Right, I will stick my headphones on, play some brown noise, and try again.


Cheers,


Andy


* Our company Mentoring scheme is being audited by the IET today, hence the fact I've been asked to work at HQ and prepare to be quizzed by the IET!

** I led a raiding party and commandeered a soundproof space away from anyone else where that team could work, before any actual murders occurred. I ignored the suggestions from the rest of the engineers that it should also be made airtight...
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    Mark Tickner:

    Being a functional group means that if you overhear a person having a specific issue, sometimes you have experienced that issue previously and can offer a solution (or vice versa).  Being separated from everyone else sometimes means you miss out on some of the best practices.




    This is of course very true, and in fact is at an extreme in organisations like mine where we are almost all home based. Also, while of course any of us can call any of the others for advice, when you know everyone is very busy it becomes more awkward not wanting to disturb - whereas in an open-plan office you can see a colleague head for the coffee machine and join them for a chat.


    Particularly when mentoring younger staff this is an issue.


    I have noticed, however, that in the most recent designs of open plan engineering offices I've visited the complete lack of partitions (as mentioned) means that there is no conversation at all - which sort of defeats this advantage (except for the spotting a good moment to interrupt). The UK rail industry seems to love huge open plan areas which remind me of an old Victorian accountant's office - I can imagine Scrooge sitting at a raised platform at one end raising his eyebrows if anyone makes a noise! But that might just be my impression, I've never worked in any of those spaces.


    Incidentally, I wouldn't want to work at home if I was still doing design work, I really value that team dynamic. For safety assessment it works perfectly. Horses for courses as ever.


    Cheers,


    Andy

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    Mark Tickner:

    Being a functional group means that if you overhear a person having a specific issue, sometimes you have experienced that issue previously and can offer a solution (or vice versa).  Being separated from everyone else sometimes means you miss out on some of the best practices.




    This is of course very true, and in fact is at an extreme in organisations like mine where we are almost all home based. Also, while of course any of us can call any of the others for advice, when you know everyone is very busy it becomes more awkward not wanting to disturb - whereas in an open-plan office you can see a colleague head for the coffee machine and join them for a chat.


    Particularly when mentoring younger staff this is an issue.


    I have noticed, however, that in the most recent designs of open plan engineering offices I've visited the complete lack of partitions (as mentioned) means that there is no conversation at all - which sort of defeats this advantage (except for the spotting a good moment to interrupt). The UK rail industry seems to love huge open plan areas which remind me of an old Victorian accountant's office - I can imagine Scrooge sitting at a raised platform at one end raising his eyebrows if anyone makes a noise! But that might just be my impression, I've never worked in any of those spaces.


    Incidentally, I wouldn't want to work at home if I was still doing design work, I really value that team dynamic. For safety assessment it works perfectly. Horses for courses as ever.


    Cheers,


    Andy

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