Thanks to Pete for sending me the link to Joel on Software. He knows that I've taken some criticism for my office. He also understands the importance of providing a great working environment. So does Joel.

Joel gives the following three reasons for paying attention to the office space you provide, both for yourself and for your employees. These are:

There's a lot of evidence that the right kind of office space can improve programmer productivity, especially private offices.

Having drop-dead gorgeous, private, windowed offices makes it a lot easier to recruit the kinds of superstars that produce ten times as much as the merely brilliant software developers. If I have to compete at New York salaries against Bangalore salaries, I'm going to need those superstars, so when people come in for an interview, I need to see jaws on the floor. It's about drama .

Hey, this is my job; this is where I spend my days ; it's my time away from my friends and family. It better be nice.

So when Joel had to move into a new office he designed his space with the following criteria:

Private offices with doors that close were absolutely required and not open to negotiation.

Programmers need lots of power outlets. They should be able to plug new gizmos in at desk height without crawling on the floor.

We need to be able to rewire any data lines (phone, LAN, cable TV, alarms, etc.) easily without opening any walls, ever.

It should be possible to do pair programming.

When you're working with a monitor all day, you need to rest your eyes by looking at something far away, so monitors should not be up against walls.

The office should be a hang out: a pleasant place to spend time. If you're meeting your friends for dinner after work you should want to meet at the office. As Philip Greenspun bluntly puts it : "Your business success will depend on the extent to which programmers essentially live at your office. For this to be a common choice, your office had better be nicer than the average programmer's home. There are two ways to achieve this result. One is to hire programmers who live in extremely shabby apartments. The other is to create a nice office."

I only wish that UEN could follow these guidelines. With constraints, politically and financially, that's not possible..........
10:13:54 PM    comment []