Ahead of their Time

Apparently Silicon Valley is rethinking the office cubicle. Funny, that's something my team did about 7 years ago.

We were moving into a new building. For the first time, all my local I.T. staff would be under the same roof. As part of the planning for the new building, we had to figure out where cubicles would be located and how they would be configured.

To keep everyone happy, I delegated the cubicle layout task to the various team managers (Helpdesk, Knowledge Management Team, Infrastructure & Networking Team, SAP Team and Application Development Team). The only constraint was that each group could only utilize 64 sq feet per employee.

While most teams stuck with the traditional rows of cubicles, our Knowledge Management group took a different approach.

Since they typically hired interns and teamed them up with full time developers, they chose an arrangement of side by side desks (no barrier in between). Where there were walls, they were only about 4 feet tall. Their space also included a common, open concept meeting area - conference table with whiteboard and network connections for impromptu meetings - only steps away from their desks.

The open "communal" concept fit their work style perfectly. Communication and interaction were maximized and no one seemed to suffer from a lack of privacy.

After about a year in the building, I heard laments from others outside this group that the KM area was far "cooler" than the standard cubicles everyone else was using.

They were ahead of their time. Seven years later, Silicon Valley is catching on.