You're no room decorator, and you have bigger things to worry about than how the officer furniture is arranged. And yet, these matters could have a significant impact on how well your employees work. Although creative teams tend to like open office layouts with cubicles arranged to promote teamwork, are "these trendy open office layouts torture to the techie brain?" asks Cara Garretson in an article at ComputerWorld.

Some IT work is conducive to fluid interaction among employees, and the Agile Software Development movement embraces this notion, promoting collaboration and openness, Garretson notes. Agile advocates have created blueprints for arranging the office furniture to encourage these qualities in the workplace.

However, other IT work requires deep concentration, and a quiet environment is most conducive to that process. To sort through which office layouts are best for which types of workers, ComputerWorld gathered the impressions of IT managers in a wide variety of businesses.

One IT manager for a grocery chain pointed out that her employees tend be proficient multi-taskers who need an environment without a lot of distractions to stay on track. Given the chance, most are eager to leave their cubicles for offices, even though they want to remain in close proximity to their co-workers.

For more:
- see Cara Garretson's article at ComputerWorld

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