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High-documentation, low-meeting work culture

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Re: High-documentation, low-meeting work culture

#31

Post by cateblanchett »

fumar wrote: post #27
cateblanchett wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't Amazon have a similar structure, tho? i don't know what it's actually like to work there (anyone who does feel free to chime in) but i've interviewed and from what I can tell they put a heavy emphasis on documentation. it's tough to find a bigger and more siloed company than Amazon, and it seems to work for them.

Amazon is high documentation, high meetings culture. The documentation is reviewed by peers, bar raisers, and leaders in a process called document read before being official. Edit: Someone asked for more detail on high meeting culture. There are constant meetings between cross-functional teams, various leadership stakeholders, and ongoing operational planning. That is not including your day to day meetings within you…

so the worst of both worlds

Re: High-documentation, low-meeting work culture

#32

Post by intelVISA »

pigsinzen wrote: post #25
intelVISA wrote: post #21

Recently I've only worked for companies with limited (1 max) meetings for ICs a week, I definitely recommend it.

Is the lack of "meetings" offset by pair-coding, dragging out synchronous conversations in Slack, or otherwise controlling engineering time and schedule?

No, (currently) fully async as long as deliverables are met. The extent of 'controlled' engineering time is requiring 1x code review from a different SWE to merge a PR which is also async via GitHub comments.

Re: High-documentation, low-meeting work culture

#33

Post by incomingpain »

Sounds like my current job which I love.

My last job, low documentation, low meeting. Basically every bit as bad as you might expect. Every job you basically have to figure everything out from scratch.

2 jobs ago, low documentation, high meeting. Daily meetings to discuss what I'm working on and how little the rest of the team is doing. Yet nothing changes or improves.

Re: High-documentation, low-meeting work culture

#35

Post by baby »

canucklady wrote: post #20

My current employer was sold to me as a "high documentation" place. What it means in practice is that if you're trying to do something there are 5 outdated documents describing the decision making process for how the project was run, and no documents about how to actually use the resulting software. Occasionally if you ask how to actually do a task in Slack someone will yell at you that you should have searched for a…

Sometimes (often?) an outdated document is still great and useful and much better than no documentation at all

Re: High-documentation, low-meeting work culture

#36

Post by civilized »

bergenty wrote: post #10

As someone that hates taking a long time to write documents and has similar resistance to reading large technical documents I much prefer to ask my specific questions in meetings. I retain the information much better that way.

My experience with meetings is that they're effective at getting people to nod their heads and say they get it, but when it comes time to actually do something, they'll be back at the expert's desk needing to go over it again.

Then again, documentation doesn't necessarily solve that either, because then you have the people at your desk who don't read the documentation and need someone to walk them through it. But at least that way you don't have to go from memory.

Re: High-documentation, low-meeting work culture

#37

Post by drewcoo »

giogadi wrote: post #22
bluetomcat wrote: post #17

"High-documentation" isn't the cure, either. Just write quality software with well-defined interfaces, minimal dependencies and smooth building processes. I want to be able to build the thing without frustration, to start playing with it in order to learn its internals and debug it. Only then can I be comfortable enough to start implementing features and changes.

"Just write quality software" That's quite a load-bearing "just" there.

IMO, "quality" is going to be the sticking point.

Re: High-documentation, low-meeting work culture

#38

Post by rfdave »

commandlinefan wrote: post #24
canucklady wrote: post #20

My current employer was sold to me as a "high documentation" place. What it means in practice is that if you're trying to do something there are 5 outdated documents describing the decision making process for how the project was run, and no documents about how to actually use the resulting software. Occasionally if you ask how to actually do a task in Slack someone will yell at you that you should have searched for a…

> 5 outdated documents describing the decision making process Would that place be the U.S. Department of Defense by chance?

Not if there's only 5 documents.

Re: High-documentation, low-meeting work culture

#39

Post by seltzerboys »

nisegami wrote: post #26

In order for this to work, you also need a high-reading work culture, which is distinct from a high-writing (documentation) work culture.

well if people choose not to read or engage with documentation, they're only hurting themselves. in theory, their work performance will suffer when compared w/ others. and if it doesn't, then they for some reason just don't need to engage with existing documentation, so high-reading wouldn't really matter. the consequences of not reading documentation will either become clear or it won't

Re: High-documentation, low-meeting work culture

#40

Post by thenerdhead »

I wish more people adopted Andy Grove's thoughts on meetings.

https://jondouglas.dev/lets-not-meet/

This company seems to "get it" though. We ought to protect our attention more often.

I'd take documentation over no documentation any day. Even if it's 4 years old and was last updated by a person who left for a competitor.

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