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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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    I have generally worked in open plan offices (5 to 10 desks), but most of the time they are less than half full as the occupants are off in the factory or workshop. I find them good for impromptu networking and for just being aware of what is going on around. When I have had my own office I tend to feel somewhat isolated.

    An open plan sales type office where everyone is continuously on the phone must be hell.


    Best regards


    Roger
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    Large open plan areas are a disaster what with noise and other distractions and often, these days, they have very limited space. Whilst the noise can be mitigated to some degree by use of high level screens, these do not seem to be favoured these days - they seem to be shrinking if they are installed at all.  The in-thing appears to be "agile" work spaces with break out areas - what this really means is a small shared desk (if you can find one) with no storage for anything useful; and with some colourful seating elsewhere to "improve your wellbeing" and to allow you to discuss things with colleagues.  Bring back offices of no more than half a dozen or so desks!
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    Office areas - what are they?


    I've been working in Open Plan for the last 20 years - but I have worked in offices and cubes.  To be honest, you get used to it and unless your neighbour is particularly noisy or a space leech, you get on with it.  I much prefer open plan over "cube culture".  I dislike being stuck in a cube, it's far too isolating.


    I guess at least we have fixed desk spaces, some open plan offices go a bit further and you dock in at the first available space!  That would be a little disconcerting.


    If you have offices, do you group by project or discipline?  If it's by project: if you are a cross project engineer, do you have two desks or just have to move as you cover different projects?  If it's by discipline: do you have issues with project communication? (although the fact no-one can be bothered to walk across a office is irrelevant when the engineering is performed across multiple geographical locations).


    Personally most engineers adapt to what ever the environment they are in (unless it's unpleasant).  So I think the efficiency normalises eventually.
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    In my experience definitely by project. But you're right it is a problem. As an example, in the electronics product team I described as successful (form a working environment point of view) we were lucky enough to have a "tame" mechanical engineer on the team, subsequent projects I've worked on / managed had mechanical design as a pooled resource, and it did lead to communication difficulties. But probably no worse than if there'd been no team clustering at all.


    It's interesting seeing the different perspectives.


    The "isolation" point about individual offices is a good one, I suppose I had the best of both worlds in having an office to myself while the rest of the team didn't, so I could lock myself away when I wanted and wander around (without having a specific reason to talk to an individual) when I wanted. I know an office well where all the development engineers work in rooms with one or two people in them, and the project communication is - frankly - awful.


    Cheers,


    Andy
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    We are aligned per function in an open plan environment across two floors of a building.  It's often a case of wandering a little distance to talk to other project members - although email and IM are the prime messaging methods.  Arranging by project team would be a challenge as we are a multinational company with some functions in other countries!


    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.


    One of the things we were discussing the other day was if there is an efficiency of working from home (which is the ultimate separate office) over being in the open plan office.  Working from home tends to be able to avoid the routine distractions of people finding your desk or giving you a phone call, but given our multinational arrangement, not the noise of email.  But if you are home for a sick child or a workman, you obviously loose the efficiency.
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    If you've ever visited the IET's HQ in Stevenage (Michael Faraday House) then you'll know what working in an open plan office is like! wink

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    Hi Lisa,

    I nearly thought of mentioning that, and then thought if anyone did then it should be someone from Stevenage! I will say that on the rare occasions I've visited (not for several years now sad ) it has been nice unexpectedly bumping into friends on the staff who I didn't intend to meet - and maybe had never met in the real world before - who happened to be sitting at a nearby desk. But of course that's not the same as actually trying to work there.

    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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    In my experience, working in an open plan office means that you have to forego the plans/tasks that you had set yourself and aim to complete them when you have some alone time, especially if you need thinking space.

    Alternatively resort to the largest pair of noise cancelling headphones you can find which visibly act as a deterrent to those individuals who want to monopolize your time!

    On the upside, you do benefit from the social interaction, the perspectives of others and there is always the added bonus of being able to bounce ideas off others.


    Regards


    Dawn
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    Dawn Fitt:


    Alternatively resort to the largest pair of noise cancelling headphones you can find which visibly act as a deterrent to those individuals who want to monopolize your time!

     



    Absolutely agree with you there Dawn! If I didn't have a pair of noise canceling headphones then I don't think I'd  be able to concentrate and get any work done at all!  I share a section in the office on the first floor with my colleagues in Communities, Events, Marketing, IET Standards and IET.tv. I haven't had a count up but I can probably physically see 100+ people from my own desk. As you can imagine it gets really noisy with everyone talking, having desk meetings, having phone conversations etc so a pair of noise cancelling headphones is a must!! 


    As the majority of my time is spent in the virtual world anyway, being 'offline' to my colleagues in the real world isn't that much of an issue as they can always find me in our virtual world anyway.... wink (why does that put me in mind of the film Tron??? ) 


    For anyone that does need to 'plug in to tune out' from the open plan office chatter, here's a link to my Office Soundscapes playlist on YouTube. I find ambient soundscapes (thunderstorms, rain, birdsong etc) great for those occasions when I need to block out the office noise but I don't really want to listen to music.


    Enjoy! wink




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