Private office or open plan: at what team size?

The question arrives as soon as a team passes one person, and it gets decided badly because people treat it as a comfort question. It is first a question of how many times a day you are interrupted and what kind of conversations you have.

What open plan gives you

• The lowest cost per person by a wide margin.
• Flexibility: add or drop a desk without moving.
• Contact with the other businesses in the room, which produces more work than people expect.
• No operating burden of your own.

What it does not give you: a private conversation, and the ability to leave a full whiteboard standing between two meetings.

What a private office gives you

• A door that closes, so client calls and interviews happen without booking a room.
• A team space that stays as you left it.
• An address and a room to show when you host someone.
• Secure storage for documents and equipment.

The threshold

In practice a private office starts to justify itself at five people. Below that you are paying for square metres you do not occupy, and a dedicated desk on the floor with a meeting room allowance delivers the same real service for noticeably less.

There are two clear exceptions. First, if your work means discussing confidential files all day, the door pays for itself at two people. Second, if you receive clients several times a week, the room is part of the commercial offer.

The option in between

Between the two sits the Dedicated Desk Plus: your own place on the floor with more room, lockable storage and a larger meeting room allowance. You keep privacy where it matters, at the moment of the call, without funding an empty room for the rest of the day.

It is often the right answer between two and four people, and it is what teams pick once they have done the maths rather than followed instinct.

Deciding it in a week

1. 1.For five days, note every conversation you would not have wanted a stranger to hear.
2. 2.Note every time you had to book a room because you could not talk at your desk.
3. 3.Count the visitors you received.
4. 4.If all three totals are low, stay on a dedicated desk and keep the difference.

Try both

KinKonnects runs both formats on the same floor in Ngaliema, so you can start on open seating or a dedicated desk and move into a private office without changing address, connection or habits. Open 7am to 10pm, Monday to Saturday.