When I worked at reddit, we all sat in a single conference room in the corner of the Wired office. There were five of us doing engineering. A huge whiteboard on one wall (with a couch underneath for naps), windows on two walls, and the fourth wall was the door.
It was great. We all had headphones so we could work when we want. When some people needed to collaborate on the whiteboard, we just got up and did it. Usually everyone else ended up joining in, unless they were already deep in their work and didn't notice.
It was the perfect balance of collaboration and privacy.
But it probably worked so well because "the boss" was more like a peer, so you didn't feel watched. He was working on code right beside you.
And when we played games, it was great because you screen cheat off of Steve and he couldn't tell. ;)
That wasn't really an open office. The usual open office is one open space for 50+ and sometimes hundreds of people. It's an awful place to work. There is usually a lot of distracting noise.
What you described is something like I worked in. We had separate rooms for most teams(15 people or less). You could collaborate with fellow team members, which usually relevant for the whole team, but wasn't distracted by other teams. As you said it's the perfect balance of collaboration and privacy.
When I worked at reddit, we all sat in a single conference room in the corner of the Wired office. There were five of us doing engineering. A huge whiteboard on one wall (with a couch underneath for naps), windows on two walls, and the fourth wall was the door.
It was great. We all had headphones so we could work when we want. When some people needed to collaborate on the whiteboard, we just got up and did it. Usually everyone else ended up joining in, unless they were already deep in their work and didn't notice.
It was the perfect balance of collaboration and privacy.
But it probably worked so well because "the boss" was more like a peer, so you didn't feel watched. He was working on code right beside you.
And when we played games, it was great because you screen cheat off of Steve and he couldn't tell. ;)