Re:We're ditching the office completely
by Negitivefrags on Tuesday February 09, 2016 @07:23PM
(#11069944)
A multiplier of only 2x to go from open plan to offices is ridiculously optimistic. You can't make people work in a box. 5x is probably getting closer to reality but I bet that it's actually even higher than that. That doesn't even count the cost of renovation to make all these offices.
"On one hand you have hard data, open offices cost x, open plan costs x/2, on the other hand you have "engineers say they could be more productive with offices" against "do you remember when we were small and working in a single room, that was awesome, we were so agile and communicative" (whether or not that is applicable at your particular company size or stage, burning the midnight oil on your stack to cobble together a demo for a pitch is not the same as writing production level tricky security code)"
Not to mention that part of why you do that then is so you don't have to do that anymore.
Also, are the people that make the budget decisions the type of people that thrive on collaboration and open plans, or the type of people that prefer quiet and isolation? if they are the type of people that thrive on open plans they might feel negatively about private offices period, which leads to making your case about their positives even harder.
On one hand you have hard data, open offices cost x, open plan costs x/2, on the other hand you have "engineers say they could be more productive with offices" against "do you remember when we were small and working in a single room, that was awesome, we were so agile and communicative" (whether or not that is applicable at your particular company size or stage, burning the midnight oil on your stack to cobble together a demo for a pitch is not the same as writing production level tricky security code)