The True Costs of Cubicles

Gordon'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

Are your projects always (or almost always) late and over budget? Are your project teams plagued by turnover, burnout, and high defect rates? Turn your culture around. Read 52 Tips for Leaders of Project-Oriented Organizations, filled with tips and techniques for organizational leaders. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

Team Thrills

Occasionally we have the experience of belonging to a great team. Thrilling as it is, the experience is rare. How can we make it happen more often?

Completism

Completism is the desire to create or acquire a complete set of something. In our personal lives, it drives collectors to pay high prices for rare items that "complete the set." In business it drives us to squander our resources in surprising ways.

Virtual Conflict

Conflict, both constructive and destructive, is part of teamwork. As virtual teams become more common, we're seeing more virtual conflict — conflict that crosses site boundaries. Dealing with destructive conflict is difficult enough face-to-face, but in virtual teams, it's especially tricky.

The Perils of Piecemeal Analysis: Content

A team member proposes a solution to the latest show-stopping near-disaster. After extended discussion, the team decides whether or not to pursue the idea. It's a costly approach, because too often it leads us to reject unnecessarily some perfectly sound proposals, and to accept others we shouldn't have.

Irrational Deadlines

Some deadlines are so unrealistic that from the outset we know we'll never meet them. Yet we keep setting (and accepting) irrational deadlines. Why does this happen?

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

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming October 20: On Ineffectual Leaders

When the leader of an important business unit is ineffectual, we need to make a change to protect the organization. Because termination can seem daunting, people often turn to one or more of a variety of other options. Those options have risks. Available here and by RSS on October 20.

And on October 27: Five Guidelines for Choices

Each day we make dozens or hundreds of choices — maybe more. We make many of those choices outside our awareness. But we can make better choices if we can recognize choice patterns that often lead to trouble. Here are five guidelines for making choices. Available here and by RSS on October 27.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenXEiRBfuFHUtjHrqUner@ChacpYPvvSVhUNIOeXHKoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   
• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   

Bullet Points: Mastery or Madness?

Decision makers in modern organizations commonly demand briefings in the form of bullet points or a series of series of bullet points. But this form of presentation has limited value for complex decisions. We need something more. We actually need to think. Briefers who combine the bullet-point format with a variety of persuasion techniques can mislead decision makers, guiding them into making poor decisions. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 24, 2020, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   
• A recording of a program presented June 24, 2020, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.