[HarrietTubgirl]

1) If you're going to build out an open office, make sure to invest in sound engineering to dampen noise. There is a big difference between hearing distractions in the immediate vicinity and hearing them across the entire office.

2) Then make sure you offer good-quality noise-canceling headphones.

3) Even the supposed benefits of the open office are questionable, I think. I personally prefer as much communication to be asynchronous as possible. Using GTalk and email lets me queue up discussions and distractions and focus on working for longer undisturbed periods. The open plan directly encourages people to distract each other with minimal cost. This is useful for people working directly on the same thing, but those people would be in the same room anyway in a closed office.

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