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Show HN: An app that helps engineers fight back against pointless meetings

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Re: Show HN: An app that helps engineers fight back against pointless meetings

#131

Post by xondono »

sdevonoes wrote: post #109

There was a time when I used to say "What? Another pointless meeting? Oh c'mon that just distracts me from working on features/writing code!". I don't say that anymore. I'm fine with useless meetings because: - it's work time. I don't really mind how I spend my working hours. It's 8h and no more (well, with WFH, it's more like 5h or so, but the point stands) - if the meeting is pointless, I just disconnect. So, the m…

I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but IMO, if you are at work just clocking your 8h, you should consider switching.

Also, if you think you are attending too many useless meetings, it’s your responsibility to let them (or at least your direct report) know. They might not be aware that you aren’t needed.

Re: Show HN: An app that helps engineers fight back against pointless meetings

#132

Post by sdevonoes »

xondono wrote: post #131
sdevonoes wrote: post #109

There was a time when I used to say "What? Another pointless meeting? Oh c'mon that just distracts me from working on features/writing code!". I don't say that anymore. I'm fine with useless meetings because: - it's work time. I don't really mind how I spend my working hours. It's 8h and no more (well, with WFH, it's more like 5h or so, but the point stands) - if the meeting is pointless, I just disconnect. So, the m…

I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but IMO, if you are at work just clocking your 8h, you should consider switching. Also, if you think you are attending too many useless meetings, it’s your responsibility to let them (or at least your direct report) know. They might not be aware that you aren’t needed.

> I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but IMO, if you are at work just clocking your 8h, you should consider switching.

Fair point. I don't think I'm at work to "just clock my 8h". I actually enjoy what I do most of the time; it's just that I don't fight anymore against, imho, pointless company bureaucracy. But above all, my philosophy is: work is work; sometimes it's enjoyable, sometimes it's not.

> Also, if you think you are attending too many useless meetings, it’s your responsibility to let them (or at least your direct report) know. They might not be aware that you aren’t needed.

Sure; I never said "don't give feedback". I was just assuming the scenario in which pointless meetings are "inevitable" for whatever reason and we have to come up with (although I know it's a joke) apps like the one we see here in this post.

Re: Show HN: An app that helps engineers fight back against pointless meetings

#134

Post by analog31 »

ryandrake wrote: post #25

This always seems to be such a controversial view here, but if you think a meeting is pointless and that you have nothing to gain from it or contribute to it, just don't go. We're all grown-ups at work, and are ultimately responsible for our own productivity. Be prepared to articulate exactly why you feel some other use of your time is more appropriate, in case someone asks, but nobody is holding a gun to your head t…

Thankfully, technology may help us to find a middle ground. For one thing, it's possible to work on one computer while attending a meeting on another. My home office is two computers for this reason. This is useful for those "status update" meetings where each of 12 people gets 5 minutes to update everybody on their tasks.

You can also accept a meeting invite with the proviso that you will participate if you are actually needed.

Re: Show HN: An app that helps engineers fight back against pointless meetings

#135

Post by neltnerb »

prepend wrote: post #116

These kinds of snarky calculators actually make meetings worse, I think. There’s lots of people who I think enjoy meetings because it demonstrates power. Calculating how much their meeting costs will make this worse because it’s easier to see how powerful a meeting is. Separately, I don’t think that time consumed as a cost is unknown to participants so quantifying it doesn’t help much. Kind of like how calories on th…

The only thing that really gets to me is when the person leading the meeting shows up 20 minutes late as a show of their power.

Ten people losing twenty minutes sitting there waiting.

Re: Show HN: An app that helps engineers fight back against pointless meetings

#136

Post by icedchai »

anontwitteruser wrote: post #72
citilife wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager, I encourage my team to just say "no" where ever possible. I also always push to halve the times of meetings I'm in (and typically that works well). - We have 10 min standup every day - We have 30 min sprint planning every week - We have 30 min retro every week Beyond that we will talk as necessary between people. In reality pushing back is pretty effective at determining if a meeting is important. If th…

> - We have 10 min standup every day At my workplace we now have 90 minute daily standups because it was perceived the employees are not doing enough quick enough. It has obliterated any hope of progression in a single work day without overtime (unpaid!) since these typically will run over by a long margin, eating up what little time we had for actual development.

Have you tried not showing up and seeing what the consequences are?

Re: Show HN: An app that helps engineers fight back against pointless meetings

#137

Post by anontwitteruser »

megablast wrote: post #123
anontwitteruser wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire team...

So 5 people?? We have no idea how big your team is.

30 people. Didn't need to downvote me for not specifying an exact number.

Re: Show HN: An app that helps engineers fight back against pointless meetings

#138

Post by anontwitteruser »

icedchai wrote: post #136
anontwitteruser wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - We have 10 min standup every day At my workplace we now have 90 minute daily standups because it was perceived the employees are not doing enough quick enough. It has obliterated any hope of progression in a single work day without overtime (unpaid!) since these typically will run over by a long margin, eating up what little time we had for actual development.

Have you tried not showing up and seeing what the consequences are?

Threatening to put people on PIP, a few people tried to get excused from these meetings (even those who are rather all stars when it comes to output imo).

Re: Show HN: An app that helps engineers fight back against pointless meetings

#139

Post by prepend »

clairity wrote: post #101
908B64B197 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the one simple trick they don't want you to know about: email the organizer, making sure to CC everyone, asking for the meeting's agenda.

no, please don't do that. only asking for an agenda while cc'ing everyone is passive aggressive. a more congenial approach would be to provide your understanding of the agenda, perhaps as a question, and then asking if there's more or another alternative: "it sounds like we're going to collectively make a decision on [x]. is there anything else on the agenda for this meeting?" even better if you do this one-to-one an…

I think this depends on my relationship to the organizer. If they are my employee or mentee then sure. If the perceived agenda takes 5 seconds, maybe.

But it takes a few minutes to compose a draft agenda for someone else’s meeting. So I could spend an hour a day trying to figure out what blank meetings are supposed to do.

Asking for an agenda is quick, helps the organizer with a signal for what’s expected, and I can sustain that behavior.

I wouldn’t cc all the invites unless I think they are all also curious about the agenda and I just want to stave off an email storm asking the same question. (But then if I know that others will ask the same thing, I might just do nothing because someone else will ask)

Re: Show HN: An app that helps engineers fight back against pointless meetings

#140

Post by prepend »

aspaceman wrote: post #127
ryandrake wrote: post #25

This always seems to be such a controversial view here, but if you think a meeting is pointless and that you have nothing to gain from it or contribute to it, just don't go. We're all grown-ups at work, and are ultimately responsible for our own productivity. Be prepared to articulate exactly why you feel some other use of your time is more appropriate, in case someone asks, but nobody is holding a gun to your head t…

> This always seems to be such a controversial view here, but if you think a meeting is pointless and that you have nothing to gain from it or contribute to it, just don't go. We're all grown-ups at work, and are ultimately responsible for our own productivity. I tried doing this. Was told I need to attend more meetings. So I asked how many? They said, "it depends". "It depends on what?" "On how often we want to meet…

Eject.

I had a colleague with this problem. Kept being told that they had to attend meetings and they thought the meetings weren’t useful.

They left and solved their problem, but the group problem remains.

Sometimes I can’t fix cultural issues despite working really hard, so moving to a new team or company is the best move. Also, I think there are people who like lots of meetings so it may be a function of people finding the right culture fit for them.

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