In real estate, what mat­ters is ‘loca­tion, loca­tion, & loca­tion’. In prod­uct man­age­ment, it’s ‘details, details, & details’.

Any­one who knows me knows that I abhor shared work­spaces. In fact, I’ve quit two jobs after being moved to a shared space. It’s not pro­duc­tive or con­ducive to me doing good work (let alone the best work I’m able to do). Just fin­ished deliv­er­ing a webi­nar. Went great. Some­one com­mented that the audio was going in-and-out. I expressed my sym­pa­thy and explained that we had worked very hard to make sure every­one speak­ing was on a land­line and off speaker/headset. She responded some­thing like “I have very bad head­phones and my neigh­bors are being noisy.” Chalk another one up for “shared space” work­ing, right? Then it occurred to me why she was hav­ing a prob­lem, and the solu­tion is simple.