I've worked in cubicles and in an open office most of my life. I'm now working for a company with offices with doors, and I have to say, offices are pretty much the worst.
In an open office (and to a lesser extent, places with open cubicles), you can have constant interaction with other people. You can scan the room quickly to see who's busy, who's concentrating, who looks available for a quick chat, etc. You can hear all the technical conversations going on and are able to jump in at any point if needed. Someone's sketching something out on a whiteboard, anyone can just glance it over if they're curious or feel they can contribute.
With offices, I've found people tend to hide behind their doors. E-mail/IM can be ignored. You have to force yourself to get out and have face to face interactions. If you want to understand how things are going, what the current challenges are, or have any kind of technical discussion that requires more than a few people, you need to schedule a meeting, pry everyone out of their offices and haul them into a conference room. You can't feel the general "pulse" of the place like you can with an open plan.
The only thing worse than closed-door offices is telecommuting, where all of the above is true plus there's not (generally) even the option of getting someone face-to-face at all. Quite honestly, I don't think I would accept a job offer at a place if you told me that a significant number of people telecommuted.
Different strokes for different folks, but I find open offices suit my work style and need for human interaction much better than offices.
"you can have constant interaction with other people. You can scan the room quickly to see who's busy, who's concentrating, who looks available for a quick chat, etc"
This is precisely why I hate open plan. I don't want to be under constant surveillance by others. I don't want to be interrupted every 15 minutes by people asking me questions. I don't want others to be monitoring my screen and checking up on what I'm doing. And when I'm 15 layers into a complicated class hierarchy the last thing I want to do is get into a conversation and completely lose my zone.
Software development does not require 24/7 constant "collaboration". A quick progress meeting a day, maybe more if there is some discussion required, is sufficient in most cases. If there is a particularly technically challenging problem at hand, then sure--get some people into an office and brainstorm together. But in the end, people are going to be working alone 90% of the time. We don't need to be collaborating [i]all the time.[/i]
Also, you are forgetting the obvious: In an open plan, people talk about general bullshit, not just work. They talk about their kids, wives, weekend plans, the weather, sports teams, the latest tech gadgets, last night's game, etc, etc, etc. It gets distracting to the point where I can no longer do any meaningful work without earphones on. Last week, I measured the average noise level in my open office and it was something like 65 dB (this is equivalent to having a pretty loud conversation going next to you all day long). I felt my blood pressure rising and I even complained to management. How people can actually get work done in such an environment is beyond me.
You're probably in the minority when you say you prefer open plan. I'd trade my shitty desk for a real office any day.
"In an open office (and to a lesser extent, places with open cubicles), you can have constant interaction with other people. You can scan the room quickly to see who's busy, who's concentrating, who looks available for a quick chat, etc. You can hear all the technical conversations going on and are able to jump in at any point if needed. Someone's sketching something out on a whiteboard, anyone can just glance it over if they're curious or feel they can contribute."
This is exactly why people don't like open office plans. People can and will pester you all the time when you're deep into writing really difficult code. In lines of work which involve more interpersonal communication (and don't require long stretches of uninterrupted concentration), designing the workspace to encourage as much face-to-face talk as possible is an advantage. However, in my line of work (systems programming, and this probably applies to most programming jobs), it's a huge disadvantage.
In an open office (and to a lesser extent, places with open cubicles), you can have constant interaction with other people. You can scan the room quickly to see who's busy, who's concentrating, who looks available for a quick chat, etc. You can hear all the technical conversations going on and are able to jump in at any point if needed. Someone's sketching something out on a whiteboard, anyone can just glance it over if they're curious or feel they can contribute.
With offices, I've found people tend to hide behind their doors. E-mail/IM can be ignored. You have to force yourself to get out and have face to face interactions. If you want to understand how things are going, what the current challenges are, or have any kind of technical discussion that requires more than a few people, you need to schedule a meeting, pry everyone out of their offices and haul them into a conference room. You can't feel the general "pulse" of the place like you can with an open plan.
The only thing worse than closed-door offices is telecommuting, where all of the above is true plus there's not (generally) even the option of getting someone face-to-face at all. Quite honestly, I don't think I would accept a job offer at a place if you told me that a significant number of people telecommuted.
Different strokes for different folks, but I find open offices suit my work style and need for human interaction much better than offices.