Ask HN: Meeting overload – how many do you have daily/weekly? • Hacker News Board

Ask HN: Meeting overload – how many do you have daily/weekly?

#1

Post by stackdestroyer » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

Hi HN - curious to understand how much time engineering leaders spend in meetings. Thinking engineering managers, directors and VP's...

Extra credit: What's the longest duration meeting you regularly have? (For OP, it's a twice monthly 4 hour meeting with ALL product and engineering sr. mgrs and directors - FML)

Re: Ask HN: Meeting overload – how many do you have daily/weekly?

#2

Post by googler38714 » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

Needs "Ask HN" in subject line.

I generally have about 5 meetings a week, totaling around 3 hours. I don't enjoy meetings, but they seem somewhat productive and the burden isn't too bad.

Re: Ask HN: Meeting overload – how many do you have daily/weekly?

#3

Post by collyw » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

Too many, and nicely spaced out to maximize the loss of productivity from context switching.

Re: Ask HN: Meeting overload – how many do you have daily/weekly?

#4

Post by raztogt21 » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

Two weekly meetings (15-30 minutes) with my current employer. And a single weekly 30 minutes meeting for a contractor.

Re: Ask HN: Meeting overload – how many do you have daily/weekly?

#5

Post by edoceo » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

My company does 6 team meetings/week. Daily 30min with dev&support. Friday it's 60min while we review the week. Not counting any ad-hoc or scheduled 1on1

Re: Ask HN: Meeting overload – how many do you have daily/weekly?

#6

Post by optimuspaul » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

I work at a small non-profit teal organization. we have a daily standup for the engineers, but other than that meetings are rare for me. I have to go on HN to get my fix for being distracted.

Re: Ask HN: Meeting overload – how many do you have daily/weekly?

#7

Post by gshdg » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

18 hrs/wk of 1-1s incl. w/ reports, peers, and my own manager. 2 hrs/wk staff/leadership mtgs. 4-6 hrs/wk project mtgs. 4-6 hrs/wk ad-hoc mtgs.

That makes... ~30 hrs/wk of meetings. Yup, that just about matches my calendar.

Longest: the 1.5 hrs my manager and I have blocked off for our 1-1s. It doesn't always run that long, but we also often run out of time.

Edit: Role is VP Engineering

Re: Ask HN: Meeting overload – how many do you have daily/weekly?

#8

Post by pgm8705 » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

One 90 minute leadership meeting a week. Generally, that will be it, unless there is another issue that requires hashing something out. For my engineering team, I try to keep "meetings" at 0. Well organized asynchronous communication with the occasional slack discussion keeps things running pretty smoothly.

Re: Ask HN: Meeting overload – how many do you have daily/weekly?

#9

Post by letientai299 » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

2h3 for interview and report, then 2h ~4 for other kind of meetings (sync, feature discussion, 1-1), then some mentoring sessions, 30m * 3-5.

~16h meeting every weeks. To be honest, I'm very much dislike that, but people seems to love talking more than writing detailed docs.

Re: Ask HN: Meeting overload – how many do you have daily/weekly?

#10

Post by sturza » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

letientai299 wrote: post #9

2h 3 for interview and report, then 2h ~4 for other kind of meetings (sync, feature discussion, 1-1), then some mentoring sessions, 30m * 3-5. ~16h meeting every weeks. To be honest, I'm very much dislike that, but people seems to love talking more than writing detailed docs.

This goes hand in hand with a comment i saw earlier that people’s written communication skills are bad. Some people are more efficient with async communication than others.