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XPDAY2006: Keeping the Furniture Police at Bay

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Simon Baker

Posts: 1022
Nickname: sjb140470
Registered: Jan, 2006

Simon Baker is an independent consultant, agile coach and scrum master
XPDAY2006: Keeping the Furniture Police at Bay Posted: Dec 3, 2006 4:25 PM
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Collaborative Workspaces: Keeping the Furniture Police at Bay facilitated by Rachel Davies and Mike Hill explored the constituent elements of effective and ineffective informative workspaces and how they affect collaboration.

In the workshop we split into teams and were handed a brief that described an imaginary project for which were we to design workspaces. The first workspaces we built were from hell. The best hellish workspace had the developers (in the same team) physically separated by cubicles.


xpday6-collaborativeworkspaces10
Originally uploaded by sjb140470.

QA was in the basement, under the table.


xpday6-collaborativeworkspaces11
Originally uploaded by sjb140470.

While the business analysts were in the same city, they were actually located in a different office, over on the window sill.


xpday6-collaborativeworkspaces12
Originally uploaded by sjb140470.

And the product owner was in a completely different country, out of sight, on the mantelpiece.


xpday6-collaborativeworkspaces8
Originally uploaded by sjb140470.

Here are some more hellish workspaces:
Here's what we noted about the hellish workspaces:
  • Motivational posters are demotivating
  • Boss has a nice office, we're playing sardines
  • Desks with cut-outs hurt your knees
  • Noise coming from sales and support areas
  • Broken aircon - it's either too hot or too cold
  • Distracting music or TV
  • No wall space
  • Flickering lighting, no natural light
  • Individual offices or cubicles
  • Placements are back-to-back, cramped
  • Debris, cables, clutter, uncollected rubbish
  • Dirty offices, smelly
  • Distributed teams
  • Depressing colours
  • Not enough power sockets
  • Noisy printer or photocopier
  • Wrong level or non-adjustable desks
  • Placed in a corridor
  • No meeting rooms


The second workspaces we built were from heaven. We tried to rectify some of the problems in the hellish workspaces.

Here's what we noted about the workspaces from heaven:
  • Straight-sided tables
  • Spacious break-out areas
  • Mobile whiteboards
  • Projector, video-conferencing facility
  • More space
  • Lava lamps
  • Big screens
  • Floor-to-ceiling windows
  • Pair-programming islands
  • Meeting rooms with glass walls
  • Plenty of storage space
  • Good coffee machine, water cooler
  • Table football
  • Sound-proofing


Sites worth checking out:
1. www.informativeworkspace.org
2. www.fairlygoodpractices.com

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