Creating a Productive Environment

I am guessing that, if you are reading this, you are working in a knowledge-based business area. The value that you provide to the company you work for lies in the knowledge and experience you have, more than in what you do/produce. The people you employ are required to think more than anything else. This is especially true in an IT environment. It stands to reason therefore, that it should be incumbent upon the company to provide an environment conducive to productive thought and communication.

But how many do? How many of you work in open-plan offices in which at least one telephone seems to be ringing at any given moment? Where other people's conversations and clicking keyboards vie for your attention, and you try desperately to demote everything to background noise? Ever wondered why so many of your staff work with iPods plugged into their ears? Wonder no more! But this is nothing compared to the worst offender of them all.

Think of a time in your project where your best people were at their most productive, generating complex designs or program code, brainstorming ideas, or trying to resolve testing defects. Now just at that point where productivity is at it's highest.....

TTTTTTTRRRRRRRRIIIIIIINNNGGGGGGGGG.

The fire alarm goes off. No, the building is not on fire, it's just the regular weekly test, scheduled at exactly the point where people are busiest - mid-morning.

Some time ago, being below the level of authority required to change such things, I nevertheless tracked down the person responsible for the fire alarm tests, and asked if they could be conducted out of hours, so as not to disrupt people's work. The answer I received was that it needed to be tested during the day so that as many people as possible would know what it sounds like, so that they will recognise the real thing(!). As if anyone could mistake it for anything else.

Please, people, if you have any control whatsoever over this sort of thing, please give your people the environment in which to do what they do best.