walled offices vs. cubicles

I moved into my walled office this week, so I have to comments on comparing working in a walled office versus cubicles. Having worked in cubicles for 8 years out of a total of 23 years of my working life, I am speaking from experience.

As an aside, I read an article by Joel Spolsky once of what he thought about this topic. I see he is still writing about this topic as they are considering moving to a larger space. I am in no way as creative in my thinking as Joel, but then again he runs a company and wants the best for his employees, which is a great thing.

For me, there are both pluses and minuses about either walled offices or cubicles. At the moment I cannot decide which I like better.

	Good	Bad
Walled Offices	Privacy when you need it to make a personal phone call Can listen to music without headphones Can put up posters and paintings on the wall Personal white board to sketch designs and to-do notes Wife and kids can come and I don't feel about being loud	Harder to have interaction with team members Must work at communication to learn what others are working on Others may need your help, but must walk to see you for help
Cubicles	When surrounded by team members, easier to know what everyone is working on Perfect for Extreme Programming, if no walls are present Easy to help others when they get stuck and need help Fosters team environment in getting to know team members	Everyone hears personal conversations or phone calls When loud talkative people around, can be very distracting Little room for personal items, unless they are small Hard to pair in small cubicles and show someone your screen Suffer through gopher syndrome : people popping up out of chair and talking across cubicles