Friday, September 22, 2017

Here's a question: Does this sound like a good working environment?

Here's a question: Does this sound like a good working environment?

Within the office I work at, there's a large office that is currently filled with four cubicals. I want it, and here's what I want to do with it.

I want to tear down cubical walls, throw away the phones. Toss the filing cabinets, and the rest of the stodgy furniture while we're at it.

Bring in long tables, with more chairs than people. Encourage us to look at and work with each other. I want bar-height table against one wall, and a centralized coat rack for all the distracting shit we bring on commutes. I want the window shared by everyone. I want the lights on, bright and welcoming.

I want the longest wall covered in whiteboard, with post it notes and markers everywhere. I want burn down charts and scrum boards. I want successes and failures to be visible and shared. I want to shut the door,

Outside this large office, there are some private cubbies no one ever uses. I want this team empowered to go to there when they need to get away from the chaotic wonderful mess. I want to ensure everyone feels empowered to use it. I want that space to have cell coverage.

I want to say no to firedrills, for everyone on the team to know to direct these special weird requests back to a single point of contact who will refuse. I want to toss outlook calendar reminders into the trashbin of history.

This space is far from the kitchen, so I want a a mini kitchen: food bars, bottled water and coffee. A mini fridge. I want a single trash can and recycle for the place. Whatever beverage or food item people most need, I want to supply. I don't know if I want this at the door, or the opposite end at the window.

I want information and skills shared, for everyone growing and learning from each other. I want to keep this team functioning. I want everyone to work in the way that makes them the best.

I want me plus three working in this office, probably new hires. I don't want to be their boss. I don't want them to have a boss. I want to solve their blocks and keep them happy. I want a mathematician, a BI experts, probably a tester/UX person, and a highly technical DBA. The DBA's we've got internal, and I can nab one from a satellite office five thousand miles away. I want not a one of them to be a straight white dude -- I need the diversity of thought.

I want a slack channel up with our product owner, who travels. I want that visible to all of us. I want to have weekly sprints (probably), showing off the cool maths we've done every friday afternoon. I want to be proud of our accomplishments. We can do those in the same room, and invite everyone.

For those product demos and whatever else, I want a large shared monitor. I want it to have a chromecast or something else just as easy. I want anyone to be able to toss what they are working on to that monitor to discuss it with everyone.

I want a unix command prompt. I want PowerPoint to cry itself to sleep from loneliness. I want a daily standup, and to know we're all working on the most important items.

20 comments:

  1. Sounds awesome. Would love to work there.

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  2. Per person square footage requirements are generally higher in an open plan than cubes, will you still be able to fit four people plus all that other stuff?

    Is your IT setup such that your work will follow you to a cubby effectively?

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  3. It sounds like you want your external stakeholders to sit down and shut up, forever. Will they?

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  4. Markus Wagner​ me too. I am hopeful I can make such a place.

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  5. Patty Kirsch​ I'll need to do some measurement, but I think so. They arranged the cubes in rows, with a hallway between them. There's unused space at the front.

    As for it: mostly, I think. I can work fine from home, and while not plugged in. I might request a docking station put into one, which would make that easier!

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  6. Tony Lower-Basch​ not really, no. I want to get what they need every Friday with the whole team when we show new stuff. I want to do backlog pruning once a week (not mentioned above) to decide what's most important to the client.

    What I don't want is for them to call the team members during a sprint.

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  7. you should come work here. sounds just like that torture chamber you described. :(

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  8. I've got a chance here to make something that'll outlive me. And for once, I actually kinda want to.

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  9. Drop the bar-height table and I'm sold. When can I start?

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  10. Brian Ashford I want the bar height table. You don't have to use it. Is the presence of such a table a deal breaker and, if so, why?

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  11. William Nichols Bar height furniture is the bane of wheelchair users and I fight the good fight for them.

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  12. Thoughts as a woman with ADD:

    1. I would be incapable of being productive in this space as described without SERIOUSLY powerful noise-canceling headphones, and even then I would probably only end up using the space for required meetings. Open plans are absolute hell for anyone with ADD or other neuro stuff that makes focusing difficult.

    2. Gender balance would also seriously affect my willingness to work in such a space as described. If there was gender parity or close to it, great. No issues. However, the space as you describe it sounds really... masculine. If I was the only woman in that space, I would not feel comfortable working there, nor would I feel empowered to stake out my fair share of the available space. (Manspreading happens with stuff, not just legs.)

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  13. The only thing worse than working in a cube farm, is not even having a cube. Cubes offer minimal privacy, and this takes away even that... that space sounds horrible to me. :/

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  14. This sounds good to me. I like the idea of the private cubby space that you can retreat to when the open environment gets to be too much. I work in an open office, and having the option of going to a cubicle when I need would be wonderful.

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  15. So, this vision is unlikely to come to be. But, much more likely is a team with members in a bunch of different places.

    I'm up for ideas on how to do that!

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  16. Ohmigod good microphones and conference software. I work remote, and I cannot possibly overstate the radiating challenges of meetings where one group of people (through the magic of conference call technology) silence everyone else the instant they start to speak, and maintain sole ability to speak until they are (themselves) silent for several seconds. If you can find a conference system that allows people to interject without causing an echoey mess, you need it.

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  17. Agreed. I really want vision as well as audio, as so much more information is conveyed. Frightening thing is I could just about do this through my phone.

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  18. Of conference call software, incidentally, Zoom is so far the best I've used.

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