In late 2013, I published a paper ("Interruption and Forgetting in Knowledge-Intensive Service Environments"; link below) basically giving this same advice: In order to be our most productive at cognitively challenging "knowledge work," we need to get away from distractions and interruptions. Sequestering knowledge workers can benefit the system, the workers, and the customers (the beneficiaries of their work). So, go see someplace quiet, away from email and your phone, to work on that long task that requires all of your concentration. You'll get it done faster and, likely, better than if you try to struggle through it in-between the interruptions that plague our modern existence.
Froehle, CM and White, DL. 2014. Interruption and Forgetting in Knowledge-Intensive Service Environments. Production and Operations Management 23:4 704-722.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/poms.12089/abstract
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-deep-work-really-work/
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
LEGO Americana Roadshow: Building Across America I just checked out this traveling exhibition from LEGO and was quite impressed. The scale ... -
Merry Christmas, everyone!
-
When we let politics trump science, people are needlessly put in harm's way. http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/self-censoring-fears...
I've personally (re)started to use the Pomodoro technique (25 minutes uninterrupted work sessions, with 5 minutes break between them. It works quite well, and has really helped me getting things done.
ReplyDeleteI'll go read the article now :-)
This should not be news. Productivity under open-plan offices is terrible.
ReplyDeleteBut learning in open offices is often better.
ReplyDeleteBob Calder I don't need to learn; I need to code.
ReplyDeleteBob Calder Learning is a minority activity for most job functions. There should be special places for that, with routine work being done in protective isolation chambers (i.e., offices).
ReplyDeleteI don't agree Craig. Learning/communication should be a dynamic part of any job that goes on all day otherwise you get caught short. Now if you want to parcel it out somehow, that's a social function and not a physical constraint IMHO. Yo Steve S you see what I mean? People too often treat their coworkers like forces of nature they are helpless against. Work should be cooperative and too often it isn't. It's not the furniture's fault. ;-)
ReplyDeleteBob Calder Part of my research is understanding how people do knowledge work. A lot of knowledge work is indeed communication or learning, but it's no longer person-to-person communication or learning...it's into a machine via an electronic health record or a spreadsheet or an email or a Word file or code or whatever. Or, it's the consumption of that health record or spreadsheet or email or Word file or code or whatever, on one's one. Generating and consuming that asynchronous communication often requires solo focus. Now, for sure, there are cases and times when you need to be face-to-face or in a group, but I would argue those times are increasingly the exception to the rule, so the baseline environment shouldn't be around that activity, it should treat that activity as the special case and provide means of doing that separate from the usual work space. For each environment, the mix may be different, but knowledge work, in general, is becoming increasingly technology-mediated and individualized.
ReplyDeleteBob Calder I can't add much to Froehle's response, except to say that, when in-person teamwork is appropriate, there's a place for that. They're called meeting rooms and they're made precisely for this need. But you wouldn't want to spend all day in a meeting room, which is essentially what open-plan offices amount to.
ReplyDeleteSo why are they so popular? It's unfortunate but simple: they appear cheap, so long as you only look one step ahead. You can pack in more people per expensive square foot. Now, it's not at all worth it. What you gain from this savings is lost in productivity, and then some. However, the way most companies are set up, there's no feedback loop to detect this loss and punish the people pushing it.
There's also a second part that's even ickier. It turns out that employers do not trust their employees to stick to doing their jobs instead of goofing off. Everyone has access to FB and G+ and email, all day long. The "fix" is constant mutual surveillance by packing people in like sardines so that they can see each other's screens.
I can't speak for everyone, but when my coworkers can see my screen, I feel self-conscious, like I'm performing for an audience instead of working. And, no, this is not actually conducive to productivity.
Exactly. There's precious little actual evidence to support the idea that open offices enhance collaboration. They tend to be justified by being cheaper to build (fewer sq. ft. per employee) and provide management with a sense that employees are being monitored more effectively. Both of those are destructive to individual productivity and creativity.
ReplyDeleteCraig Froehle At my previous job, there was a variety of offices, and between internal transfers and repeated involuntary moves, I got to sample many of them. What I found is that, to the extent that they were stuck with open-plan, people adopted coping mechanisms.
ReplyDeleteThe most obvious one was to don large headphones and play music constantly. On the one hand, this counters some of the distraction from speech. On the other, it also counters the supposed benefits of overhearing your coworkers. It led to the awkward need to gesture at someone to get their attention, then wait for them to pause their music and take off their headphones. For that matter, sometimes I just want silence, not something to drown out chatter.
Another common coping mechanism was to abandon the desk to find a quiet nook somewhere and use a laptop. The downside is that laptops, with just one, smaller screen, are less productive. Also, to the extent that telecommuting was allowed, I took full advantage of it, and I found that my work-from-home days were visibly more productive for the sort of nose-down tasks that were my bread and butter.
In contrast, when I was in a small room with just people from my immediate team, it was a reasonable compromise between my preferred total isolation and open-plan. Yes, I was distracted by conversation sometimes, but it was usually talk that was somewhat relevant to me.
Joel Spolsky has written extensively about the need for small, single-person offices for developers, and provides these in his company. Various studies, including one referenced in the classic Code Complete, confirm that open-plan is counterproductive. And yet it's increasingly popular. For example, Bloomberg's "cool" office in midtown brags about being open-plan.
We're in the middle of designing a brand new Lindner College of Business building at UC and the architects keep hinting at the idea of open offices for faculty. They have no idea how we work. I'm at my most productive when I can get three days straight with absolutely zero interruptions. That often involves turning off my computer's Internet connection entirely and just staring at my screens, running analyses, and editing a manuscript. True, synchronous collaboration is about 5% of my job...maybe 10% at most. The rest is staring at a computer screen or at a printed page on my lap.
ReplyDeleteCraig Froehle I closed my GMail tab, and then opened it only after I was at a stopping point. But, for technical reasons, actually disconnecting from the network was not an option.
ReplyDeleteAt previous jobs, I used to take advantage of the solid hour I spend on commuter rail to go through my email, put out fires, and then plan out my day, down to writing up extensive notes on a step-by-step level. I would then consult this plan anytime I got distracted. It really kept me on track.
At Google, I couldn't really work during the commute because I had only intermittent connectivity and no access to source code otherwise. But I did write up detailed plans as guides to help me recover from distractions. It worked, but I wish it hadn't been so necessary.
Craig Froehle ultimate software's new building has open areas for 8 people and a loose divider for writing on then another group and these pods of open space are surrounded by glassed offices and meeting spaces for small groups. They opened the building ten days ago. It's a very interesting mix that should make everybody happy. When I was there everybody was either in an open area for a small meeting room. None of the single offices seemed to be occupied. But it might have been the time of day for the development cycle.
ReplyDeleteBob Calder That might be ideal for organizations where people need to collaborate a lot. In my field, we don't...staring at a computer consumes about 80-90% of our time (and part of that is increasingly collaborative as we meet remotely). All told, I'm not at all convinced that work effectiveness is enhanced by open offices. They may be cheaper, but I doubt very much that the work produced therein is better or more plentiful.
ReplyDeleteI would be surprised if the difference in cost is meaningful. I done see it as an argument. I used Ultimate as a modern model. They are seemingly well run and have a successful recruitment program. Look at their corporate profile.
ReplyDelete