I have always thought that the 'open workspace' concept was devised by evil HR folks specifically to torture introverts. After a few weeks of that, they'd find me in the broom closet desperately sucking up some alone time. ��
Yeah, we now book the broom closets for this purpose.
In all seriousness, I really don't know what the hell happened here in the computer/IT world. Some guys got this idea that it worked well for their team, and management grabbed it and ran. They love the fact that the density is about 2x cubes, for starters. In scrum, they love standups for the constant "feedback."
But for introverts and thinkers, it is murder. It doesn't work for everyone, but this is not understood. It doesn't matter.
To make matters worse, they say: "We need this to attract Millenials." But nearly every millenial at w*rk I speak to says they are not happy with it.
I grabbed those pictures from a web search on "programming bullpens". You'll find many more articles about it tilting towards a lot of unhappiness.
I just want to warn those out there about this. What used to be a fairly solitary profession has moved towards a love-fest with your neighbor. Pair-programming is a real blast. Oh yeah, love it.
* Pair programming is where you write your code with somebody literally watching your every move. You say: "I'm going to add these two variables, so that will be x = a + b" Your pair watches you and says, "No, it should be x = b + a" Seriously. What a pain in the a...
I guess in welding it would be: "I'm going to put a tack 1/8" away from the low side." Your pair would watch and say: "Nah, run a bead over here."
Lots of fun. Right.