Yep someone needs to be the ass. Ideally the VP Eng. / Head of Eng. or equivalent should be the superass and set a good meeting culture. Also have retros for people to be able to bring up any topic for further actions.
Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
21–26 of 26 posts
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#22Symptom of noob low IQ managers. Just switch employers.
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#231. Every meeting should have an agenda in the invite. I know some folks go as far as ignoring meetings that don't have one. 2. One person should own and drive the meeting. 3. Intention of every meeting should be producing some kind of result: action items, decisions made, people responsible, dates & milestones, etc. Based on the short description you provided it sounds like nobody owns/runs the meeting. If that's you…
This is the correct answer. I end every meeting I run with:
Who, does what, by when, and how will be follow up?
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#24IMO, although I lack details of your specific situation, this has nothing to do with remote.
The lack of a culture of writing and async work (sending a well-researched email, setting the meetings agenda) contributes to this. In my experience, when people cannot be bothered to write their problems in emails/slack and prefer to always jump on a call, they are generally prioritizing their time over yours.
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#25Make sure that every meeting (if it is necessary) has an agenda, and follow it – strictly. Preferably also send out a pre-read to get everyone up to speed.
For standups we fixed this problem with https://spinach.io.
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#26[deleted]