Written by Jared Ruckle, CenturyLink Cloud
It seems like everybody’s talking about what the workplace will be like in 2020. What technologies will be popular in 2020 and so on. But what about now until 2020? How do we get from here to there and how do we design a workspace now to set us up for success in the future?
My colleagues and I asked ourselves those questions when we designed our new CenturyLink Cloud Development Center in Bellevue. We had the opportunity to create the perfect environment. From principles of collaboration, instant feedback, cross-functional teams to shared objectives, we had the chance to fit all that into a physical office.
Here’s what we learned:
1. Team rooms, organized by function. The majority of our space is dedicated to “team rooms” – large, open rooms where employees are grouped by work stream (platform team, application services team, service engineering, etc.). As we build new features and push them to production, all the people you need to interact with are literally a few feet away.
Some employees prefer to float from team room to team room, depending on what they are doing that day, or “just because.”
2. Desks suited to pairing. Pairing is a powerful tool for distributing knowledge across an organization – and you need wide desks to sit shoulder-to-shoulder to maximize that concept. Whether it’s a security expert, network architect, product manager, or tester, you need the physical space to work effectively and knowledge-share. And because our teams are using a single set of tools, each ‘pair’ can review dashboards and data in common repositories, to inform their decision-making.
3. Built-in collaboration spaces. Each team room is outfitted with gigantic whiteboards. This generous allocation of space means people are more inclined to start drawing and illustrating an idea, problem, or scenario. Near each whiteboard is a high-def TV connected to AirPlay. This wireless setup is frictionless, and far faster than fumbling with adapters and cables. Each TV is near a couch, two chairs, and coffee table. There’s even whiteboards in hallways – because sometimes hallway conversations are the most important ones.
4. A recurring theme: “having fun is just as important as working.” It’s easy for employers to say that work should be fun. But how do they show it? At the Center, team rooms have embedded speakers in the ceiling, so everyone can listen to music during the day. There’s even satellite TV in each team room, as well as in the largest shared spaces, too. And of course, there’s a dedicated gaming room when it’s time for a much-needed break.
From tearing down walls to unique naming conventions for meeting rooms, there are plenty of ways to get your office ready for the future. The most important thing we learned from this planning exercise was to remember that the workspace not only influenced the employees, but it also influence the way our employees worked.
To learn more about our Cloud Development Center, or how we specifically prepare DevOps for future success, visit our cloud blog.
