Design Leadership

Chapter 3. Office Space and Remote Working

Introduction

There is no doubt that our physical space and coworkers play a huge part in how we feel about our day-to-day work. In this chapter, our design leaders share their ideas and hacks on a range of working environments and structures. From the quality of the light, to team organization and the length of the commute, our leaders have invested a lot of time and money into these work and play spaces. We discovered a rich diversity of office spaces, policies, and structures that help teams stay connected, productive, and happy. There’s definitely no one-size-fits-all approach, but finding the space that aligns with your team and culture can be a productivity multiplier.

One of the clear advantages that technology offers is the opportunity to work remotely. Recently, there has been a lot of discussion in the media about whether teams should be expected to work in the office or allowed to work from home. Even within the office space, there are widely differing views on whether office floor plans should be open or closed. Somewhere in between these are the teams that have an office but frequently skip the commute to work from home. We found a broad range of approaches and would be hard-pressed to claim that one system works better than any other. However, we did discover that well-connected and productive teams didn’t leave organization and structure to chance. The most successful design and development teams have clear policies about ...