I've set up three office environments in the last six years or so, each with pros and cons.

Empeg - originally totally open plan because we had no money and couldn't afford furniture! Later, cubes of a sort - 5'6" accoustic partitioning and too many people crammed into a small space. The former was perfect for a startup, the latter was really quite unsatisfactory. The partitioning added little real privacy, was a poor acoustic isolator, and detracted from the "group of guys all pulling together" vibe.

DNNA - a massive increase in space all on one level. Meeting and special rooms around the periphery then one large open development floor. No serious partioning, huge desks, a feeling of plenty of space. I didn't spend a lot of time working in that office (in fact I spent more time planning and creating it!) but while I was there I felt it was a partial success. The down side was a stilted atmosphere - everything was so open that rather than being too noisey the place was often deathly silent, a kind of a public library effect. I found it disconcerting at times, but perhaps it got better with more people. The second mistake, I think, was fitting the place out with Herman Miller everything, minutely trimmed and platted miniature trees, bloody expensive lighting and other stuff that made it feel like a classy solicitor's office more than an R&D centre. I got carried away with the sudden availability of money but it was the wrong vibe. One of my more pointy haired moments I have to confess. I know the Sigmatel folks tinkered a bit since I left, with lots more plants and so on and I'm really pleased to read Peter's positive comment as Andrew (the office manager) and I put a lot of effort into making it somewhere nice to work.

Akai Digital - I spent a lot of time reading pretentious workspace essays from over funded New York software bloggers (yes you know who) and pretty much convinced myself that we needed individual offices to a) attract the best staff and b) make eXtreme Programming work properly. As it was I had a hell of a job finding a suitable space, and when we eventually found Logic House (discovered by Mr Schofield after a Wrestlers one day) it didn't really lend itself to eleven separate offices plus the communal rooms. I compromised and instead we have two staff members to an office, each office being fairly large and partitioned down the middle with cupboards and acoustic panels. Because of XP everyone spends a lot of time in each others offices, so in fact it's not uncommon for each space to contain only the two people who are working collaboratively at that time. This seems to work out well in terms of minimising distraction, empowering collaborative working, and still giving everyone some degree of privacy when needed. The walls are all glass with integral blinds so the place feels spacious and open but you can shut yourself away if you need to browse some porn or something. Through architectural and budgetary necessity we seem to have stumbled on something that works really well and as far as I know everyone here is pretty comfortable with the environment. Oh, and no sculpted trees - although I do have several chilli plants growing in the staff room!

Whatever type of space you have I think the #1 most important thing is for staff to be able to customise it to their requirements and tastes. Some guys here have left their office totally stock, and at the other end of the scale there's Toby's space . So to respond to the original post, get those partition extentions up without delay and explain to your CEO how motivational you find them!

Rob