[arca_vorago]

My company has a slight variation on the open plan, in which each department has an open space that is separate from the other departments (but you can walk into another for questions). The one critique I had was how screens were inward facing and it was a privacy/security issue. We changed this so now people have screens facing towards outer walls and people face inward, and it preserves the benefits of the open space and keeps a good level of privacy.

One issue is that some people simply don't do well with noise and other people around, for them they need solitary workstations to be fully productive, but that is easy to provide and should be provided. People should work in a comfortable way. Overall, I have been getting used to it and love just being able to ask a few questions of a programmer while I am doing other work.

I do not think I could deal with a single large open space though. Luckily, I also don't field stupid questions as much as some people might in an open plan, as I am one of the only people in the company without a PHD. (it still happens occasionally though)