Succeeding with Agile

The Space

The traditional high-tech office with six-foot (nearly two meter) high cubicle walls is a definite impediment to collaboration. The most common replacement for it among teams that have had input into designing their workspaces is what commercial interior designers call “caves and commons.” This approach combines small, quiet places (caves) with common areas.

A typical pre-Scrum caves-and-commons approach might have included a dedicated cubicle for each employee and a central area containing perhaps a pair of couches, a white board, and a bookshelf. The idea was that employees would meet in the commons area for spontaneous discussions. When given the chance, Scrum teams take this idea but shift the ratio of caves to common space far ...