Even with the best productivity tools and training, expectations must be consistent with reality. Capers Jones and others have documented the loss of productivity associated with modern office environments. While movable partitions certainly save money which would otherwise be spent on buildings, a lost hour of productivity is forever lost, and the loss compounds over time. A developer who can't concentrate because of frequent interruptions is unlikely to provide the best possible product. Developers can lose hours or even days of work because of power failures, disk failures, inattention, or a host of other problems.
Good managers act as a buffer for distractions.
This helps get the necessary housework done and keeps the work environment moving. Conclusion Space constraints have allowed us to only scratch the surface of solutions to software management problems. Our point is that many of the most vexing problems were addressed years ago, and that solutions are available to the enterprising project manager.