reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (01/18/88)
Is anyone aware of any empirical studies or experiments to determine
the impact upon programmer productivity (or any related field) of providing
offices with walls and doors and as opposed to cubicals?
I have worked in both types of environments and by far I feel that
an office provides the better environment by reducing noise levels from
other people's phones, typing, conversations, etc..... However, if asked
to gauge the relative value in terms of productivity I would not be able
to come up with a value for an office over a cubical.
Thank You,
--
George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation
{gatech,rutgers,attmail}!codas!pdn!reggie Mail stop LF-207
Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826
Largo, FL 34649-2826hbh@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Hillard Holbrook) (01/20/88)
Two references that may help:
DeMarco & Lister, "Programmer Performance and the Effects of the Workplace"
IEEE 8th annual Conference on Software Engineering, 1985
McCue, Gerald, "Teresa Laboratory- Design for program development"
IBM Systems Journal, Vol 17 No. 1, 1978
- a personal note: fooey on cubicles!!!!
Hilliard Holbrook hbh@beach.cis.ufl.edmaka@hpcilzb.HP.COM (Marta Kosarchyn) (01/21/88)
There is an 11% "productivity gain" at IBM-Santa Teresa described in T.C. Jones, Programming Productivity, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1986, that is attributed to the provision of private offices for software personnel. Another study, this one at TRW, similarly reports an 8% gain: B.W. Boehm et al., "A Software Development Environment for Improving Productivity", Computer, Vol. 17, No. 6, June 1984, pp.30-44. -marta mkosarchyn@dtc.hp.com
rice@Data-IO.COM (Ken Rice) (01/21/88)
I just finished reading a terrific new book: PEOPLEWARE: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister Dorset House Publishing Co., Inc. This book has quite a bit to say about the increased productivity that can result from private, quiet offices. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who's interested in the sociological aspects of programming (or other) projects. Ken Rice
al@gtx.com (0732) (01/21/88)
In article <2058@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: > > Is anyone aware of any empirical studies or experiments to determine >the impact upon programmer productivity (or any related field) of providing >offices with walls and doors and as opposed to cubicals? > > I agree, cubicles provide a terrible environment for the kind of concentration needed for programming. In the September 1987 issue of COMPUTER, Barry Boehm, in an article entitled "Improving Software Productivity", cites two studies that show that "Private Offices" have provided "productivity gains" of 11% and 8%. You'd have to check the references (the book "Programming Productivity" by T.C Jones, and the article "A Software Development Environment for Improving Productivity" by Boehm et al, COMPUTER v.17 no.6 June 1984 pp 30-44) to see exactly what the studies mean by "Private Offices" and what they are being compared to. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Alan Filipski, GTX Corp, 2501 W. Dunlap, Phoenix, Arizona 85021, USA | | {ihnp4,cbosgd,decvax,hplabs,seismo}!sun!sunburn!gtx!al (602)870-1696 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------
johnw@astroatc.UUCP (John F. Wardale) (01/22/88)
I agree that cubicals increase the distraction level, but
we have 6 people working of various parts of a system-kernel and
its IO drivers. From a group point of view, its VERY frequently
nice to ask "the right person" when he/she is in your office.
This is may be an odd case, but I just want to suggest that
cubicle may increase TOTAL-Productivity. :-( :-(
I'd also add that 6 is on the high side of what I'd draw as the
limit to the number of people that can productively maintain cubes
in one room.
--
John Wardale
... {seismo | harvard | ihnp4} ! {uwvax | cs.wisc.edu} ! astroatc!johnw
To err is human, to really foul up world news requires the net!reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (01/25/88)
In article <734@astroatc.UUCP> johnw@astroatc.UUCP (John F. Wardale) writes: >I agree that cubicals increase the distraction level, but >we have 6 people working of various parts of a system-kernel and >its IO drivers. From a group point of view, its VERY frequently >nice to ask "the right person" when he/she is in your office. But what about the other four people! If you are asking "the right person" a question, then the two of you are now distracting the other four. If having offices will keep your people from talking to each other, then you have far greater problems than this debate will solve :-) -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation {gatech,rutgers,attmail}!codas!pdn!reggie Mail stop LF-207 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL 34649-2826
polack@aero.ARPA (Alexander J. Polack) (01/28/88)
In article <2058@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: > > Is anyone aware of any empirical studies or experiments to determine >the impact upon programmer productivity (or any related field) of providing >offices with walls and doors and as opposed to cubicals? > > I think in 1981 TRW conducted a study that demonstrated 40% productivity improvement when the working environment is properly setup. Part of the setup was providing individual offices to the software engineers. Now, not all of the improvement came from the "individual office" setup, but it did help. For better details you should contact Dr. Barry Boehm at TRW. - Alex Polack