Today I start my first day at Funding Gates as CTO. I’m extraordinarily excited to be working with an amazing leadership team, staff, investors, and advisors to massively disrupt the small business technology space.
Over the last couple of months of casual conversation over drinks and dinners, I’ve discovered the two co-founders, Ismail Colak and Jean-Marc Freuler, share my passion for building insanely great products by hiring the smartest, best developers, treating them like rock stars, and then getting out of their way.
That also means I’ll be leaving Toura, a place I’ve called home for the past two years. I leave knowing we’ve built an amazing team, awesome products, and have made our dent in the world. I expect them to continue to do great things and wish them all the best.
P.S. We’re hiring! Looking for an amazing workplace that is run by folks that understand and value software developers? It’s my job to make Funding Gates the best place that you could ever work, and I hope you’ll check us out!
P.P.S I’ll be in Phoenix, AZ April 1-4 at JSConf, followed by RailsConf April 23-25 in Austin, TX. Come talk with me about software development, good beer, or anything else that comes to mind. I’m buying!
“There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back.”
“How does a large software project get to be one year late? Answer: One day at a time!”
Apple Store Upper West Side
It’s trendy right now to produce office space that looks like an Apple store. Bright,
airy, cheerful, lots of open space, big ceilings, blonde wood, attractive and friendly
employees. I can’t blame the urge – I love seeing the latest architectural masterpieces
the geniuses at Apple routinely cook up. Living in New York I have the opportunity
of being a short hop away from no less than five of them.
Apple retail stores invoke the sprits of great cathedrals of the 14th century
or some vast ancient library. If you’ve ever stepped foot into one, however,
the library or cathedral-like comparison vanishes into the cacophony of hundreds of
conversations, various iTunes-sponsored music clips, and the ringing of countless
iPhones. Often when I walk into one of these stores I’ll put on my noise-isolating
earbuds – not to listen to music, but to act as earplugs.
So why is it that companies – small and large, startup and established player –
continually take high-pay, high-skilled, super-smart programmers and cram them into
giant rooms full of noise and distraction?9
Things you’ll notice in virtually all of these include: folks talking on phones,
people listening to headphones, small groups standing and talking, and the deafening
sound of thousands of dollars of productivity being sucked out of the room.
Go to any of these offices and ask each programmer: how often are you distracted?
Do you ever find yourself drawn into conversations that you aren’t a part of?
I interviewed at a company that had a giant office (imagine a hundred folks in one room)
and one of their engineers proudly said: “We have a generous work from home policy.
I love it because I can never get any work done around here!”
Flow
Programmers work in a state of “flow”1 – it takes a tremendous amount
of mental wrangling to page in to memory all the data required to comprehend the micro
and the macro of software systems. Recalling the object hierarchy, database
schema, or GUI architecture for a complex system is akin to building a house of
cards. One slight bump and the whole thing comes tumbling down.
Some estimates have suggested it takes 15-30 minutes or more2 to
get in the zone3. What is less-known is how long it takes to re-start
flow once you’re knocked out. Given an average NYC fully-loaded salary, a simple
email “Ding!” or an answer to a “quick question” could cost a company $50.
Of course, it is too simplistic a measure and vastly
underestimates the true cost of distraction4; many larger features
or architectural decision-making requires continual effort to maintain progress.
A few interruptions strategically placed through the course of a day could
make a four-hour task take two days.
Sure, large companies are so full of inefficiencies and waste that the lack of agility
won’t hurt them. But startups? If your programmers are less efficient
than the competition that could mean you launch months late. That you can’t iterate
as quickly as you need. And that next amazing idea – that idea that fundamentally
transforms your company and changes the world – simply doesn’t have the time
and focus to exist. It’s lost in the noise.
Solutions
The evidence is pretty clear that massive open-plan offices where the entire office
is colocated are terrible interruptors of programmers8. At the the
other extreme we can place programmers in private offices (with a door that
actually closes!) to keep them isolated from the noise and movement of the office.
DeMarco and Lister, via Peopleware7, argue for private offices for
each developer because most software development is done in isolation.
Communal Workshop
“Agile” methodology, on the other hand, states that communication is the most
important factor and that private offices destroy communication12.
Oram and Wilson, via “Making Software: What Really Works and Why We Believe It” argue
very strongly that the Communal Workshop (smaller units of open-plan with,
say, six or seven programmers in their own room) layout is the most efficient for teams
that require lots of collaboration and have loose requirements.[Oram and Wilson, pg. 346]12
As a counterpoint, Joel Spolsky suggests that communication isn’t harmed via
private offices.1011
There are valid points to each solution but I’m not aware of any hard data that
can conclusively determine the “victor”, if there is such a thing.
Regardless of the layout, here are some rules that must be enforced:
Create a quiet workplace free of unnecessary distractions
Some distractions, like going to lunch or pair programming, are necessary. Most
distractions, like ringing cell phones, conversations not involving the team,
eating lunch, and playing music are unnecessary and disruptive.5
Keep ambient noise to a minimum
At our office, we have a shared space where the developers work and everyone else
is in a separate location. We treat the programmer space as we would a library.
No irrelevant conversations6, don’t bother anyone, stick to IM and IRC whenever
possible. Meetings either are team-wide (standups), so can take place in the
shared space, or individual, and are taken out of the room.
Leverage Technology
We use group chat with logging, private instant messaging, wikis, blogs, etc.
to keep general chit-chat down. The side effect, too, is that two programmers
can have a discussion in a chat room and any passive bystander can chime in
if they feel like. If they’re busy or not in the office, they should browse
the chat log upon returning to work. As they catch up, they can re-engage
the other programmers if they choose.
No meetings
The more meetings a programmer has the less time they have to work. We only
have one meeting, our daily standup – everything else is ad hoc and optional.
Conclusion
With a little bit of time, thought, and effort, we can have office space that is
much more enjoyable, productive, and focused on programmer happiness.
