Some senior leaders choose to work alongside their teams in cubicles, eschewing private office rooms. New York City’s former mayor Michael Bloomberg is an example. Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is another. Intel’s former CEO Andy Grove is often credited for setting this example.
As I’ve worked at various news media companies, I have been impressed to see editor in chiefs and other senior editors spend most of their working time in cubicles alongside their teams where the action in the newsroom is. They use their offices only when needed for privacy.
Having access to a private office room is useful too, whether you are a manager, maker, or both. So as an experiment, for one day every week, I decided to share my office with my colleagues in the technology team who don’t already have an office.
Below is the memo I sent to my team. I’ll share the results of this experiment after a few months.
Dear Software Engineers and Technology Colleagues,
In the spirit of supporting our makers’ schedules, I’d like to make my office room available on Fridays to anyone in our technology team who does not already work in a private office. Here is how it will work. For any Friday, you can book my office in advance for a 2-hour period of your use. I will not use the room on Fridays. Instead, I will work at various temporarily available locations alongside other tech colleagues.
You can use my office for any productive work for your job. You can write code uninterrupted for 2 hours in a change of environment. You can pair-program with another colleague. You can use the dry-erase white wall in my office to hold a brainstorming workshop with fellow contributors. You can close the door and use the privacy to think of solutions to complex engineering problems in your work. Research indicates that a refreshing temporary change of environment can be helpful for such tasks.
I should also clarify what this is not meant for. If you need to hold a meeting, join a teleconferenceI suggest you continue to book regular meeting rooms. If you’d like to have a social lunch with colleagues, there are other more suitable places in our building. I’m offering my office to you on Fridays for maker’s work: to build software/systems, and to solve engineering problems in a temporary change of scenery.
This is an experiment. We will test, solicit feedback, measure and change. For example, if time-windows other than 2 hours work better, we will adjust the experiment.
I plan to run this experiment until at least the end of this year. If we determine that our software engineers and other tech contributors find this experiment productive, or even just enjoy having it as a part of our culture, we will consider continuing it into the next year.
Details on how the sign up and feedback process will work to follow.
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