I was reading "Bloomberg by Bloomberg" over the weekend and I thought his opinion on the topic was relevant since I believe Bloomberg was one of the first major workplaces that placed everyone in tight open-office type environments. My understanding of his opinion on the topic was: yes there are distractions but you also learn new things. Fundamentally I think there is considerable misunderstanding between people who subscribe to the above view and people (like me) who see considerable personal performance improvements when allowed to work distraction-free. It is not clear to me that "concentration spaces" and etc. are a solution/concession since IME most of the time they are filled with people on phone meetings; even if you find an empty one, you will still hear the people next to you due to the thin walls and the necessary loudness. Edit: the relevant part in the book was at page 163 for my edition in the chapter "Management 101".
> yes there are distractions but you also learn new things
I've found that, in open plan offices, attempting to mentor or be mentored on something is a great way to earn dirty looks from anyone who's unfortunate enough to be sitting nearby. If you do it often, people will start griping about you behind your back.
Mini meeting rooms can work, when you can find them, for about a year. After that, the company will respond to complaints that people will hang out in them for hours on end (which I could swear was the point, but I digress) by requiring them to be reserved ahead of time in Outlook. Which puts the brakes on using them for genuine collaboration, because reserving meeting rooms in Outlook is a minor hassle, especially if you're a Linux or Mac user, and it's ultimately easier and less demoralizing to just not talk to each other than it is to play a game of, "Mother may I," whenever you want to have an impromptu discussion.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turns out that the square footage you need for an open plan office plus a sufficient amount of meeting space ends up being greater than the square footage you need for a more traditional style of office. The last open plan office I worked at was probably 1/3 meeting spaces, and it still didn't feel like enough.
I don't buy it. Most people are trying to get shit done so are wearing headphones and for the people that aren't, you only overhear people who happen to be within earshot radius from where you're sitting and only if you're somewhat paying attention or not otherwise distracted, and of that stuff you do overhear, how much is actually relevant or useful? In my personal experience, the amount of times I overheard something in the work space (as opposed in a social space area like the break room) that was useful or relevant to me has been far, far less than the amount of useful stuff I've encountered in places that had a "be vocal on slack" culture.
