Ray Ozzie’s Putting You in a Cube

Mini-Microsoft: A Disruptive Defrag for Microsoft:

Now then, regarding this insight:

Another simple tool I’ve used involves attracting developers to use common physical workspaces to naturally catalyze ad hoc face-time between those who need to coordinate, rather than relying solely upon meetings and streams of email and document reviews for such interaction.

Whoa-ho-ho, there, Tex, hold on there! I’m lining up like the next guy to kill off meetings and email threads and reviews, but I escaped the cube-farm to come to Microsoft. A door and free cola sealed the deal for me. I’d much rather show up at 9am for the daily scrum meeting and have to hold my tongue than go back to the days of being in a shared space. I guess if we did implement that environment I would personally help realize my vision of a smaller Microsoft by jumping to some local startup.

This was the most genuine moment of emotion in Mini-Microsoft’s post. This is a bad sign.

If doors make teams less effective, should doors be an entitlement?

Don’t get me wrong. I love having an office with a door. There is considerable research that it makes individual programmers more productive (see Steve McConnell’s RAPID DEVELOPMENT for sources). But maturity means taking a close look at whether the psychic goods of the individual are more important than the psychic goods of the team.

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