April 17, 2002	Volume 2, Issue 16
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The True Costs of Cubicles

by Rick Brenner

Although cubicles do provide facility cost savings compared with walled offices, they do so at the price of product development delays and increased product development costs. Decisions of facilities planners can have dramatic project schedule impact.

ordon's fingers raced over the keys as he typed. The architecture was finally coming clear in his mind, and the pieces were now fitting together as if they were meant to, like the pieces of a puzzle. He felt satisfied and thrilled. Then the phone rang, interrupting his flow.

Not Gordon's phone — Jeff's, in the cube across the aisle. Jeff picked up, and Gordon listened with interest. Jeff was about to become a dad again, and Gordon was mildly curious. Jeff's end of the conversation was clipped and cryptic — he probably felt people listening. He told the caller he would call back, and then left to finish his call in the conference room that everyone called the "Cone of Silence."

Well, Gordon thought, not much learned here, and he returned to writing. In ten minutes, he was back in the flow. Ten minutes lost.

Cubicles provide cheap office space. They support high densities, and they can be reconfigured much more cheaply than walled spaces. From the perspective of Facilities Management, they make a lot of sense.

But cubicles can increase project execution costs.

With our increasing dependence on the telephone, cubicle occupants now experience higher interruption rates due to the noise of telephone calls of other cubicle occupants. And people who work on teams need to talk to each other too, often in person, and often in "the cubicle next to mine." Cubicles may be one of the driving forces behind telecommuting: "I'm working at home today so I can get something done."

Cubicles are cheap to build
but they depress the
productivity of anyone
who has to thinkWhen people doing brainwork experience elevated interruption rates, they take more time to finish complex thought tasks. They also make more mistakes, which lowers quality, increases the cost of rework, and lengthens time-to-market.

What can we do?

Since the interruption rate experienced by a cubicle occupant is roughly proportional to the number of cubicles in the room, reducing room sizes reduces the interruption rate. We could also return to walled spaces. Both approaches raise Facilities costs.

It's a trade-off. Since facilities planners typically aren't accountable for project schedules, their interests are different from the interests of the company, but most of the time they have a lot of control of the trade-off.

Facilities planners aren't the problem — the typical accounting system is. It fails to allocate accurately the full costs of facilities options, because it doesn't measure the cost of delays and disruptions that are traceable to Facilities. Accounting systems were never designed for that.

If we want facilities planners to have a company perspective, they must be accountable in a budget sense for the impact of their decisions. Unless they are, the trade-off they prefer generally will lower facilities costs and increase interruption rates. While that trade-off makes Facilities sense, it's often business nonsense.  Top    Next Issue

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More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

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Virtual Communications: Part I

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See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

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Public seminars

Person-to-Person Communication for Project Managers

When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program you'll learn a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Des Moines, IA: February 16, Breakfast Meeting, Central Iowa Chapter of The Project Management Institute.
   
• Des Moines, IA: February 16, Lunch Meeting, Central Iowa Chapter of The Project Management Institute.
   
• Houston, Texas: May 8, Monthly Meeting, Houston Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Houston, Texas: May 9, Monthly Meeting, Houston Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Race to the South Pole: The Power of Agile Development

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough. Lessons abound. Among the more important lessons are those that demonstrate the power of the agile approach to project management and product development. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarSt. George Banquet Hall, Kitchener, Ontario: March 6, Dinner Meeting, Canada's Technology Triangle Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   

Human-Centered Risk Management

Most of us can assess technological risks, but risks related to human behavior tend to resist our best efforts. This session provides a framework for evaluating risks related to the behavior of individuals, teams, organizations and people generally. Human-centered risk differs from technological or market risk, because objective evaluation requires acknowledging personal and organizational limitations and failures. Since some of those limitations and failures might apply to the people assessing the risks, or to their superiors, there's a tendency to deny them or to explain them away. Our approach examines capability, organization, context, risk mitigation, and workplace politics. It has tools for guiding the assessment and management of human-centered risk, and we show how to extend these tools to suit your situation. You'll learn how to identify sources of risk in human behavior; recognize systemic and individual barriers to acknowledging risk; assess the effects of organizational turbulence; determine the risk associated with inappropriate internal risk transfer; estimate the effects of team dysfunction, toxic conflict and turnover; and measure the impact of workplace politics. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarMITRE, in Bedford, Massachusetts: March 20, Monthly Meeting, Boston SPIN. Register now.
   

The Race to the South Pole: Ten Lessons for Project Managers

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to project managers, the story is fascinating. Lessons abound. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Columbia, Missouri: May 17, Full-Day Workshop, Mid Missouri Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

Project Management in Fluid Environments

Most people now work in environments that can best be characterized as fluid, because they're subject to continual change. We never know what's coming next. In such environments, managing — teams, projects, groups, departments, or the enterprise — often entails moving from surprise to surprise while somehow staying almost on track. It's a nerve-wracking existence. This program provides numerous tools that help project managers who work in fluid environments. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Columbia, Missouri: May 17, Monthly Meeting, Mid Missouri Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Politics of Meetings for People Who Hate Politics

There's a lot more to running an effective meeting than having the right room, the right equipment, and the right people. With meetings, the whole really is more than the sum of its parts. How the parts interact with each other and with external elements is as important as the parts themselves. And those interactions are the essence of politics for meetings. This program explores techniques for leading meetings that are based on understanding political interactions, and using that knowledge effectively to meet organizational goals. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Rochester, New York: May 24, Professional Development Day, Rochester Chapter of the Project Management Institute.