It’s Caves AND Commons…

Posted by indomitablehef | Filed under Anti Patterns, Agile, Productivity

…not Caves OR Commons, and not Commons only.

Australian scientists have reviewed a global pool of research into the effect of modern office design, concluding the switch to open-plan has led to lower productivity and higher worker stress.

“The evidence we found was absolutely shocking,” researcher Dr Vinesh Oommen from the Queensland University of Technology’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, said.

“In 90 per cent of the research, the outcome of working in an open-plan office was seen as negative, with open-plan offices causing high levels of stress, conflict, high blood pressure, and a high staff turnover.

If you have to choose one or the other, you’re better off giving everyone a cave than forcing everyone into a common area. It’s feasible to cram multiple developers into a cubicle for pair programming and collaboration. It’s not feasible to focus and achieve “flow” in an open plan office when working alone. The last time I worked in such an environment, it turned into a shanty-town. Developers would build little “forts” around their half-cubes with marker boards, stacks of books, and pieces of cardboard. They’d hang up signs saying “do not disturb”, and invest their own money in expensive noise-canceling headphones - just to be able to get a little work done once in a while.

Amazingly, this is one of those fundamental things that almost nobody gets. I’ve never worked in any place that got it right. Software developers are expensive resources, especially good ones. And as a manager, you would think that getting the absolute most out of that expensive piece of equipment would be one of your top priorities. Instead, developers are crammed into cubicles instead of offices, and at worst, forced to sit out in an open floor plan. It’s money down the drain.

How about a little math?

Let’s say you’ve got a good developer, and he makes 90K year.
Now let’s make some assumptions…hypotheses, if you will.
1. Assume that working in an office would make him more productive by 1/2 hour per day, over working in a cube
2. Assume that working in an open floor plan would make him less productive by 1/2 hour per day than when working ina cube.
3. Assume that having an office with a door, and a common area to work with and collaborate with a team would make him more productive by 4 hours per week.

There are 260 working days per year. Assuming an 8 hour day, your developer’s half hour is worth approximately $21.60. His four hours per week is worth approximately $173.

So, in one year:
1. If you give him an office, he is more productive to the tune of 21.60 x 260 = $5,616.
2. If you sit him in an open floor plan, he is less productive to the tune of $5,616
3. If you give each developer an office, and the team a common area to collaborate, each member of the team is more productive to the tune of 173 x 52 = $8,996

Assume your office floor plan will last 3 years or more and you are considering an open floor plan. Can you afford some sort of an office for every developer for less than $33,696? Not a corner office with a view, mind you…just walls and a door.

Assume you have a team of 6 developers, average salary of 90K, and you are considering an open floor plan (for 3 years)…can you afford to set up offices and common areas for less than $161,928?

Can you afford not to?

(I think my productivity assumptions are highly conservative, and that the real return would be much higher. Probably double. Maybe more.)

Also, I have at least heard of one place that got it right: Joel Spolsky’s Bionic Office.

Ludicrous speed? Sir, we’ve never gone that fast before!

Posted by indomitablehef | Filed under Visual Studio, Tools, Productivity

For those using ViEmu: A nifty registry hack that will turn your CAPS-Lock key into your Esc key…for even faster keyboarding. Or, use SharpKeys to get the same effect .

Stand in the Place Where You Work

Posted by indomitablehef | Filed under Productivity

I’m finally doing it. I’ve turned my desk into a makeshift stand-up desk, and I’m now standing up while I work.

So far, I love it. I do need a pad to stand on, though. My feet are a little sore after the first couple of days. Eventually, I hope to make the case that I need an adjustable sit/stand desk - the electric kind that raise and lower with the touch of a button. For now, though, I’m just going to try to do almost all of my work standing up.

ViEmu

Posted by indomitablehef | Filed under Visual Studio, Tools, Productivity

Back when I was in college, my first computer science professor insisted that everyone learn to use the Unix text editor Vi. After my initial few weeks of frustration, I was hooked. I could really fly on the keyboard, without ever using the mouse or the arrow keys to move around. I got my degree, got a job, and I haven’t seen Vi since.

Until now. This nifty little Vi emulator (ViEmu) can emulate Vi in Visual Studio, SQL Server Management Studio, Outlook, and Word. I found it after reading about it from jpboodhoo, and these screencasts from Aaron Jensen at Eleutian (part1, part2, part3) helped me get started. I must say, it’s still painful…relearning all this stuff. I’m currently slower using ViEmu than I was a few days ago without it. But I’m beginning to see the productivity at the end of the tunnel. (I found myself hitting “hhhhhh” several times while writing this blog post.)

more ViEmu goodies:

• Graphical Cheat Sheet and Tutorial
• Tips on Effective Editing with Vim
• Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use vi?

Call the Baby Ugly

Posted by indomitablehef | Filed under Productivity

In the mail: Reclaim Your Life: A Two Week Challenge to Help You Regain Time - Stuart R. Levine [hat tip: Jon Terry]

Mind Mapping

Posted by indomitablehef | Filed under Tools, Productivity

On Sunday, I spent some time talking to my buddy Edward about a graduate class he is taking at TSU. He pointed me toward the Institue for Human and Machine Cognition. There’s a lot of interesting stuff there, that I’m only beginning to scratch the surface of. Check out the research papers in theresearch section, and the videos in the Evening Lecture Series.

This got us talking about “Concept Mapping”, which I had heard of before as “Mind Mapping”. IHMC has a link to their CMap Tools on their homepage. I ran into bubbl.us awhile back [via lifehacker] In this context, you can use bubbl.us as a visual way to brainstorm. I used it successfully awhile back when I was first attempting to come up with an education program for my new job. I had lot’s of “stuff” floating around in my head that I knew I wanted to communicate, but it was hard to get it all wrangled into a structure that I could present without rambling, or creating some Castro-esque all night rant. Using bubbl.us, I was able to ramble in a structured way, connecting ideas to each other visually, until the whole thing took on a much clearer structure.

I get the impression that the Concept Mapping ideas at IHMC are a bit more sophisticated than bubbl.us, but for what I needed, I found bubbl.us quite serviceable. The comments to this post on lifehacker.com list a whole slew of other “mind mapping” applications, some free some not, some simple some way more robust.

I think I’ll try this one next.

UPDATE: Well, it looks really cool, but it’s so slow tonight that I can’t seem to make it do anything. I’ll try again tomorrow.