Update: (a PM-specific concern) Having developers working close together is valuable to my team - people tend to naturally ask more questions, get involved in code-related conversations they overhear, do more pair programming sessions etc. With the new setup, we will lose some of these benefits. Should I find ways to formalize these practices now - weekly knowledge sharing sessions, designated Scrum areas etc? How do you recapture the lost intangibles of changing a productive working arrangement for developers?
Original question:
My boss recently became head of both the BA and Developer teams, and wants to reorganize the office space and relocate everyone's cubicles so that the teams are more interspersed.
As the Dev manager, I see this as a bad idea because:
- It's a threat to productivity as you can't ask peers a quick question without walking down the hall
- It's a hit to morale as both teams lose their individual cultures and the sense of camaraderie that comes with sitting close to people you work with
What is the right thing to do here? I appreciate the boss' vision of a closer-knit team but am not sure if he's on the right track.