Project Rooms and Productivity

Demarco’s book - peopleware - hints at organisations who ensure that the environment is set up so that - and I am paraphrasing - the office facilities people can get around the desks easily so that they can clean them etc. Great productivity for the office cleaner, bad productivity for the expensive agile knowledge worker. Click the chap for some analysis :

Capers Jones in his latest book (2008) - Applied Software Measurement states “It appears that for knowledge workers such as software professionals, the impact of physial office environments on productivity may be as great as the impact of the tools and methods used. Open offices and overcrowding tend to lower productivity, wherease private offices and adequate spaces tend to augment it”.

When advocates of Agile Methods quote dramatic increases in productivity it would be more than interesting to determine how much is due to the effect of having co-located office space, and how much is due to the framework, methodology, or engineering practices being used …food for thought.