[Baghard]

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame. -- Richard Hamming

[nnq]

It's slightly amusing that everyone seem to miss the huge difference between:

    A. Individual office with open door
    B. Open plan office

I'd imagine the ideal would be individual offices with no doors:

This would create a good enough sense of intimacy and would be obvious to people that when they pass the space of you non-existing door they are entering your space so they should have a reason to do it and you acceptance. And of course, having an actual separate ceiling atop your office is important - the visual part matters, we need the feeling of "private cave" even if we agree to share it most of the time. And open space above only brings anxiety and makes you feel that you are in an open savannah and a predator can jump at you from behind the bushes anytime.

But of course, we live in a plentiful age, obsessed with efficiency (oh, the bitter irony of the contradiction...), so all that wasted space and extra paid on rent because open-office spaces are probably cheaper is a no-no...

[greenyoda]

It's slightly amusing that everyone seem to miss the huge difference between: (A) Individual office with open door (B) Open plan office

Exactly. And Hamming didn't work in an open plan office at Bell Labs. The fact that he writes about open vs. closed doors implies that they had offices with doors.

"I'd imagine the ideal would be individual offices with no doors"

Doors are very useful to have, even if they remain open most of the time:

- Closing your door allows you to have a meeting with a couple of people in your office without disturbing your neighbors.

- If you manage people, you'll need to be able to have private conversations with them (e.g., performance reviews).

- Sometimes, you really need to concentrate on a difficult problem without interruptions.

- You'll occasionally want to be able to have private, personal phone conversations, e.g., with your doctor.

[nnq]

> Doors are very useful to have

Then I'd use them as some kind of status token, to gamify things a bit. Mangers would have offices with doors by necessity, for private conversations with employees etc. And for the rest, if you are a lead developer, or tech lead or senior developer, than you get a door added to your office. Otherwise the hinges stay, but no door... like a hint of "when you'll get better, you'll get that door" :)

[chris_wot]

An "incentivise the workforce through privacy deprivation", eh? I'd probably take it a step further - open plan toilets. Some employees spend far too long on the John. You can't stop them from going, that would be gross and impractical. But you can use social engineering to help them remember they are there to work and to do so collaboratively.

I can't tell you how much time I've lost to the porcelain throne! (I never measured it) but I do know that I want to get ahead, and when I get to do a crap in a cubicle with a door, I'll have made it!

P.S. This is why wifi and laptops are so great. A lot of thinking time can be had on the dunny. To really get your creative juices flowing, encourage your employees to think about direction on the bog. You could get your next Gmail there. Think of it as 10% time, without need to allocate the 10%. Your employees will thank you!

[SmellyGeekBoy]

Or just kill two birds with one stone and swap all of their chairs for toilets!

[chris_wot]

The CEO could be given a squatty potty instead of an executive chair. It's doable.

[dkersten]

I find that 50% of my work I can do in an open plan or open door environment and for the other 50%, I need quiet and a distraction-free environment. Open plan definitely doesn't provide that, but I'm not convinced that open door does either -- it very much depends on the floor layout (eg how busy is the corridor outside the office?)

If its a quiet-low-traffic work environment, then open door is perfectly fine, but if not, then it won't provide the quiet that a closed door does. I don't care about privacy, I care about (lack of) noise and distractions.

My ideal setup would provide a communal quiet library-rules room with couches; sound-proofed meeting rooms with doors; breakout areas for groups to sit and talk; hot-desking space; and 1-man offices with doors. Then allow people to use them as preferred or necessary for the work they're currently doing.

Failing that, at a minimum have open-plan + plenty of silent "library rules" space.

> "when you'll get better, you'll get that door"

So, you want to sabotage my work quality until I produce better quality work?

EDIT: Forgot to say that movement (seeing people walk past out of the corner of your eye, for example) can be just as distracting as noise.

[ccvannorman]

New idea: Open-office floor plans, within individualized ceilings above every workstation! ;-]

[arvinjoar]

I've been thinking about that quote from time to time for a while now, and what strikes me is that his generalization does sound very plausible, but we have to remember that his experience is from a very specific context. To me it seems like having an open door at Los Alamos or Bell Labs back then, is akin to hanging around HN, certain IRC/Slack channels, and so on, today. At least for the vast majority of us, who wouldn't be exposed to such bright people otherwise.

Although I wouldn't count myself as successful by any metric, I still think I've picked up a lot of interesting and useful stuff though osmosis, stuff that a lot of people not exposed to the same things only realize a few years later when it hits the mainstream and becomes part of the zeitgeist of Western culture (and so much else that never hits a more general audience but still holds promise within their respective niches if one can connect the dots).

[stock_toaster]

I think doored offices have the nice property of supporting both modes (open and closed). Closed-door mode is for getting work done, deep thought, or reflection. Open-door mode for allowing/encouraging communication with others, encouraging collaboration, yet comes with an understanding that you may be interrupted.

Open office plans force the open-door mode, and make the closed-door mode quite hard (if not impossible for some people) -- not everyone is comfortable wearing headphones all day, people will interrupt you anyway with headphones on, etc.

[thedevil]

In addition to the ability to shut the door, the office limits noise and sights to one direction - in front of you. And it limits it to when people actually have something to say to you specifically.

Open office has you surrounded, including people behind you and in your peripheral vision. It's much less comfortable and causes a little anxiety. And your attention constantly gets ripped around in every direction.

[eru]

A classic talk.

An office with an open door is still better for getting stuff done today than a cubicle, which is still better than open plan.

Ie the right tradeoff might still be to open your office door, but that doesn't say much about putting yourself into an even more exposed position.

[chris_wot]

It's a pity he never studied those who kept their door closed when they were concentrating and kept it open the rest of the time.

[eru]

Yes, though it's only a talk with lots of generalizations. He probably has more nuanced views in private.

[p4wnc6]

I hope you're not suggesting this as a defense of open-plan offices. Moreover, though I think Hamming said a lot of right and useful things, this isn't really one of them. DeMarco and Lister, in Peopleware, even have a whole chapter called "Bring Back the Door" -- I'd rather take productivity advice from people who actually study productivity. Such folks support the ability to close doors and gain privacy when you need it. Hamming, in this matter, is just a Monday morning quarterback. His name and awe don't mean I have to venerate everything he says. Same with Feynman, or anyone else, and especially when they are talking out of their own depth, as Hamming is here.