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Ask YC: Workplace experiments?

2 points by jdunck ↗ HN
37 Signals, those blogging wunderkind, have been posting about <a href="http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/893-workplace-experiments">various workplace experiments</a>.

I especially like the unconventional hours bit, but it got me thinking-- what other workplace experiments are worth doing?

Office vs. open is pretty tough, since that requires changing your actual workspace, but many other things would be testable.

What ideas do you have on this?

2 comments

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jdunck
FWIW, we have 3 devs, and are discussion 4 10-hour days vs. 2 16-hour days with each person staggering 1 extra work day.

Another thing is to specifically avoid interrupting each other except at times-- like, on the hour or something. Right now, it's very easy to interrupt every 5 minutes all day.

More?

michael_dorfman
I'm planning on experimenting with 6-hour days for everyone at my next startup. My thinking is that people will get more effective work in a 6-hour day (knowing that they have an extra 2 hours to spend with their families, or goof off, or whatever) than in a standard 8-hour day.