6. Small team of programmers, sharing an office with salesmen shouting into phones.
In one place I worked the sales-guys would walk over to the programmers (where it was quiet) to make noisy calls so they wouldn't disturb the other sales-guys.
But at least the billiard table was great.
It was straight out of the IT crowd (only much darker).
(In fact around the same time we witnessed an actual scene from the IT crowd: the CEO gave a speech at the launch dinner for of our revolutionary new product (3 years in the making) where he lavished praise on every department apart from the dev team who planned and built it. We looked at each other dumbstruck waiting for him to thank the cleaners next…)
One real story. The head of PR guy has a very strong voice. We were lucky that he doesn't talk in the phone too often, because he took me out of the zone, almost out of the office every time.
Then he was moved and placed in the sales people row, farther from programmers. Now he complains that he can't concentrate because their chatter.
Do you really think that this guy was just a little bit aware of the effect of his conversations? I really doubt it.
Mixing people on a maker's schedule with those on a manager's schedule is never going to work. Also don't mix people who need to think with people who need to talk on the phone.
In our current office, we don't have the luxury of closed offices, but we do have separate spaces (kitchen, meeting room, small "lounge" room, hallway.) So the informal rule is: the big open room where everyone sits is on the maker's schedule, if you have to big discussions or use the phone, go elsewhere.
Works well enough most of the time. Of course it helps that there are very few non-programmers, and those are out of the office most of the time, so the open plan office is usually peaceful anyway.
Similarly, a set of closed offices around a common area with couches and whiteboards. Here you get to choose; individuals can isolate, when cranking, and they can also include themselves into conversations by leaving their doors open.
Note that this is WAY different from having a set of offices along a long hallway (where you get no community at all -- hallways are just like motels, or crappy apartments).
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CaveAndCommons
which is not very common because then the company has to buy both caves and common space for everyone.
This was my favorite, and this company made software for government forms, each family of forms had their own schedule, so what groups were pressured changed during the year.
By their accounts it was their most productive era
1. Small team of programmers, sharing a closed office.
2. Small team of programmers sharing an open office.
3. Team of programmers each with their own office.
4. Team of programmers in one big room.
5. Team of programmers in one big room along with a bunch of other people.
Small team, in a circle, with their backs to each other, was by far the most productive environment I've ever experienced. We could concentrate on our work, but when shit happened we could turn to look at our compatriots screen and help each other out.
You have to be a real team for this to work. Not just a bunch of people with the same employer.