Wednesday, April 11, 2007

How to Build Good Software? Private Office

In an open space, people keep on coming to discuss various issues with various people, issues that have nothing to do with your work. You end up either being distracted, or annoyed by the increased noise level.

Apparently at Microsoft, they have private offices for each programmer. It might be extreme, paradoxally not in the XP (extreme programming) sense, but it is much better than open space for productivity. In XP, it's almost the opposite with 2 developers working often together.

2 comments :

  1. Yeah..more or less will be distracted..I sit opp. a web designer who likes to sing aloud.

    It builds rapport though..crucial for interaction.

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  2. Open spaces help communication, although the noise level is higher. It works best when the team as a whole agrees to keep the noise down and keep the conversations related to the work at hand. Other developers singing and people coming in to chit-chat don't work in any environment, let alone an open space.

    Dave Rooney
    Mayford Technologies
    http://www.mayford.ca

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