Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Death to the Cubicle! (10 May 2005) Shockingly, there has been no defining Frederick Taylor-esque research on knowledge-worker productivity. But Tom Davenport, professor of management and information technology at Babson College, has tried to crack the code with a yearlong survey of workers, academics, and executives in HR, IT, and facilities planning. He found that three factors determined white-collar performance: management and organization, information technology, and workplace design. The last, he says, has a measurable effect -- for good and ill. "Open offices do lead to more unstructured communication," he says. But "those same offices can lead to problems of concentration. If you value reflection or deep thought, it gets tough." Call it the attention-deficit office. Article URL: http://www.fastcompany.com/subscr/95/open_essay.html Read 40 more articles from Fast Company sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: The Power of Design     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy