HN Explorer

Ask HN: How do you(developers) manage to be productive at open office plans?

8 points by ConfusedCrontab ↗ HN
A year back when I joined my company, I was so excited as it was my first open office environment. I loved the colourful couches, engaging people. But when it came to coding, slowly it led to distractions, frustrations and lack of productivity.

8 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 33.5 ms ] thread
ConfusedCrontab
I totally love the people and the tech we are building, But its just this environment making me go nuts. If you have any tips and experiences on how you managed one, please enlighten me.
dmitrios
It was hard for me at the beginning many years ago. What worked for me was headphones and a lot of Pink Floyd. It is important to find a balance to work well with others: share your ideas early, whiteboard and sometimes pair with a teammate for doing the spike. Try to find what works for you to keep right balance and avoid unnecessary stress.
gukov
Headphones + smoothened brown noise

I'm hypersensitive and easily distracted so cutting off sound is a must. I also combined it with the pomodoro method for additional boost of focus. I'm now thinking of making it an online app to help others.

ConfusedCrontab
Yes I also use brain.fm and Bose headphones, but that doesn't help this situation where all of a sudden 10 guys appear behind you and discuss about something else among themselves totally irrelevant to you.

Even though I won't be able to fully hear their voices, I get distracted. Sometimes I doubt that I am very vulnerable.

db48x
Be cautious of headphones. They're a very popular solution (and an easy thing to look for when interviewing), but there's some evidence that they're a bad idea. I would have to look up the exact reference, but in Peopleware they mention a study that found that software engineers lost a lot of creativity when they wore headphones. In the study, most of the students wearing the headphones didn't notice that they exercise that they were doing was useless; in spite of it's apparent complexity, it left the input data completely unchanged. Most of the group not wearing headphones noticed this.

Flexible hours can work really well; most offices are blissfully quiet at 4am. Also the lights can be off!

Reserving a conference room for a few hours is great. You don't even have to be alone; a small group who are all working on the same thing at the same time can be immensely productive this way. Here's a good example: http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/08/24/projectdarkness/.

Basically, find all the ways you can exert some control over your environment and use them.

fiftyacorn
not a great answer but you get used to it - pomodoro is quite good as its a commitment to focus and block out background noise
cauterized
Earbuds with a good seal. Daily meditation. Convincing the guy in charge of seating plans to give me a desk without a high traffic corridor behind it. Going for a walk outside when it gets really loud or people are running around. Working from home whenever possible.

We don't have enough conference rooms for actual meetings, so that's rarely an option.

Really, I've only managed to mitigate the problem a bit, not solve it. Would love to hear anyone else's tactics. I'm seriously considering going freelance again mostly just because it means never having to work in an open plan office.

morbidhawk
I think I would actually really love this environment if executed in a healthy way. Lately I've become a big believer in embracing my environment in positive ways if possible. A few years ago I would have said no way, but I'm beginning to realize when I shut out others it's not as productive as I think it is. There is so much more to learn from others than myself and I think viewing those interactions as ways to learn instead of distractions would be the way to go. Then again put in that environment I might change my mind but I'd be curious to try that out.