Technovangelism

Several sources cite the importance of private offices for developers. But those are referring to full-time, professional programmers who are spending around eight hours a day in those offices. They do not ever speak to different situations in which developers might be working for only two hours a day. According to the same sources, two hours is hardly enough to ever enter “flow,” let alone do something with it. With flow being such an important reason to have a private office, if you can never reasonably enter flow in the first place, is a private office worth it?

A significant amount of my development experience comes from working on a team of five programmers who meet together for a total of ten hours a week and due to space limitations, all work in the same room. Because we typically work no more than two hours a day, I am willing to argue that private offices would not benefit us. I won’t go as far as to say an open area is beneficial, but I don’t think it is doing any damage to the team. The developers quickly learn how to focus and block out noise so that conversations between two members don’t become conversations between everyone. Private offices could disrupt communication between individuals because walking to another developer’s office takes time. Granted, it is not very much time, but when you have only two hours per day, saving a few extra minutes can be critical, especially over the span of weeks and months.

While I tend to agree with the authorities on private offices, I am not so sure they are always the right solution. When I enter the full-time workforce, I will expect an office, but for now I am satisfied with my small, open room.