New office is about more than banana-shaped tables and a sauna!

Pipedrive has moved to new offices in Prague just one week before the general lock-down in March 2020. It took five more months to completely finish it and now we can finally present it to the world! The office is unique, it's special and it's full of emotions and Pipedrive culture built right in. Most importantly, I've learnt many things about office design in the process, so I think it would be nice to share some!

The storyline

A little bit of background first. Pipedrive has opened its office in Prague in 2018. We have first started working from HUBHUB co-working space as that was the simplest thing to do.

Already from the day when I was returning from our Pipedrive headquarters in Tallinn after my round of interviews there, I was projecting ideas about our future office in Prague in my head. I've been part of the Skype office in Prague from the very beginning and I've seen the team grow around that office space. It has been essential for the team spirit and bonding. I still have only the best memories about it. ??

Find the heart of the future office early

That's why I made building an office a very high priority. I wanted to hire an office manager from day 1. Even before we had a team to talk about. It was such a bold move, I even had to convince myself by writing an article why do we need an office manager for a team of 2 ??

And whatever I wrote there back then, is still true today. Markéta has had a chance to absorb the Pipedrive culture, see the team's habits and the way of working and at the end tailor the office experience to perfectly fit our needs. And of course, to become the living heart of the office.

Be patient, young padawan!

Back to early 2019 - the office market was peaking before the Covid-19 epidemic, so nobody would want to lease us an office for less than 6-7 years. With only 6 people already hired at that time, it's understandable the company didn't want to risk a big investment into the office space when the team was too small and too young, with no hiring pattern to see.

So we had to be patient and wait a bit. Which was a good thing at the end, since we could wait for the right space to show up, we were in no hurry. Not being in a hurry is a good thing on a real estate market ??

Have the right team

Just to be sure, I take only little credit for the office itself. Besides the awesome creative work of the Perspektiv studio, from the moment we got budget and signed a lease, it has been almost a one-woman show ???♀?.

So let's talk about the things I do take credit for (at least partially) and what I think are the traits of a good office for modern software engineering teams, based on my 20 years of experience of building software in various different environments.

The layout

Not open-space

The default fit out by the developer was based on an open-space layout. I can understand why is it a standard these days - it's so much cheaper than building walls. I cannot even believe how much have we spent on building walls for separate rooms. That was a big learning - you get to understand how much things cost pretty fast. Hint: It's a lot! ??

Back to the open-space idea. I've spent my fair share of time in open space areas and I'm one of the people who don't mind them. And I also do believe people who cannot stand them, so I think it's really not about flame wars between two kind of people, but how do you find a balance to respect the needs of everyone?

Not individual offices

Individual offices may sound comfortable and productive, however I don't believe they're the answer either. Even if you have the money for those extra walls. I've never sat in one myself, but I've seen enough of bad examples of inability to communicate between people in the same building within Microsoft in their Redmond headquarters. At times, I had to fly over from Europe to lure people out of their offices to a common meeting room to finally talk. ??

Team rooms! ????

Pipedrive opted-in for team rooms in Tallinn in our new headquarters and we have just copy/pasted the idea. It's great.

Our team rooms fit 8-12 people in general and combine the best of the two worlds. The room is large enough to fit a team of people who closely collaborate on a project (a Mission in Pipedrive terms). At the same time it's small enough so the team can close the door and get a focus time uninterrupted from the other noise in the office. Win-win. ??

Honeycomb clusters ??

To keep the entire space playful and creative, we have avoided straight corridors and rectangular shapes. Instead the shapes of the rooms and corridors follow honeycomb shapes and patterns. For this idea I actually don't take any credit, that's the ingenuity of the architects from the Perspektiv studio. In real life, being in that space is even better than it looked on paper. I highly recommend, team offices don't need to be boring.

Common areas connect people ??

So how do you get people sitting in team rooms talk to each other beyond team boundaries? Generous and inviting common areas. Our main kitchen is the heart of the office, a place where people meet and talk all day long.

We have even built a fully equipped kitchen, so we can get creative and build up team spirit by joint cooking. ??????????

Event space rocks ??

We have an event area in all of the bigger Pipedrive offices and it's such a great, multi-purpose space, that it very well justifies the space it occupies. Our event space fits 40 people comfortably, up to 80 for a meeting up to 1 hour and can be easily expanded towards the main kitchen area through interconnected TVs and speakers.

We use them for all kinds of internal meetings and once it will be normal to have in-person meet-ups and events again, we'll share all the Pipedrive goodies with the external world again.

Hiding spaces ??

Even in a small team room, one can feel the urge to hide somewhere and work alone for a while. We have put several hiding spaces through out the office, where people can just go and work alone. They're seldom used, but people who use them appreciate to have that option. Plus it's a good use of space which would have been otherwise just a corridor.

The workstation

Do you like bananas? ??

Working behind non-rectangular desks for years, I don't even raise an eyebrow when I see one. Clearly, many people do, so let's start with them. Why do we have them and why is it a no brainer investment in my view? They allow for a flexible setup in the room - twins or triplets are the most often used and effectively split the room into clusters which break uniform patterns, yet still look organised. I've even seen a set up with six desks in circle, creating a balanced space with nobody feeling left-out from the team. It was our People&Culture team in our Tallinn HQ, btw.

You don't see your neighbour's monitor or keyboard in your peripheral vision, so you're not distracted by their work so easily. Not sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with someone creates a wider personal zone, so it's easier to focus on your work. At least comparing to a typical narrow open-space desk.

I'm 191cm tall and apologising to my co-worker sitting opposite from me for kicking their legs became my daily bread since I've started working. With banana-shaped tables, it's easier to find an angle to limit these collisions. How many times did you kick somebody under your desk at work? ??

Overall, I'm a big fan of the setup these tables allow. In my eyes and also personal experience, they spark innovation and creative thinking much more likely than traditional desks arranged into rectangles. Go bananas!

Sound comfort ??

Just by limiting the number of people in one room to 8-12, noise level goes down naturally. But it's not enough. Especially co-working spaces focus on design and space utilisation, but save costs on sound-proofing individual rooms. As a result, people get tired faster, since their brains need to filter out all that extra noise.

Starting from the blueprints, we have planned for sound-proof walls, doors and materials on the walls and ceilings that would prevent echo and provide comfortable work environment. The same standards were applied also for meeting rooms and phone booths and thanks to that, joining video calls from a meeting room provides a satisfying experience for all sides of the call.

The perks

Only after we have had the basics right, we started focusing on the perks of the office. Things that make a great working space special and memorable. We wanted our extra perks to be also highly useful and practical.

The sauna ???♀????♂?

What kind of Estonian company would we be, if we didn't have sauna? ?? It's not only that, having sauna in the office is more practical than you might think at first, not just the wow factor.

Sauna time is a slow quality time when your body relaxes and there's a lot of room for a meaningful conversation about anything. Almost exactly the opposite of the rest of a typical workday and a great chance to get to know your colleagues a little bit better. I've used it so far for long 1:1s, team events or just individual relaxation. Any alternative is great.

I admit it's not for everyone and even though we care deeply about keeping the sauna an inclusive, safe and nudity-free space, there will be people who will not use it. And that's fine, we have other perks ??

The game room ??

Doing creative and intellectually challenging work the whole day takes its toll. The human brain needs breaks. That's why we have the game room. People can both relax here, play some games alone or with their team mates, and what's the most important, they can be noisy. And it's very good problems to have, whether we should by the new Xbox or Playstation console ???♂?

Is it a meeting room, is it a bar?

Our Narnia bar meeting room is a crown jewel between meeting rooms. It fits comfortably 16 people for a meeting during the day and an entire team for a team-building activity after work. The entire team put an extra love into making this room special and it pays off. There's no way to have a boring meeting while here and after hours, it becomes whatever your imagination wants it to become and whatever the team needs. Hence the reference to the Narnia Chronicles.

The basics

After telling you all the secrets and perks, a couple of facts to finish with. We have leased roughly 1300 sqm and projected the space for 100 people. I've been told the industry standard is 10 sqm / person, which results in above standard space of 13 sqm / person in our office.

We're currently 25 people, which leaves us a lot of room for growth and also for social distancing and anti-Covid prevention at the workplace.

Help us fill out the space

Now that you know how much we care about the well being of the people we work with, join us if you're a software engineer or a product (data) analyst.

Find out much more about who we are and join us! ??