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Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

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Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#191

Post by dasil003 »

abc123abc123 wrote: post #125
7bit wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That almost sounds insulting. Like management is the only party with vision, drive and a goal and everybody else is just there to help. When often management just manages and true innovation really comes from people of all positions.

True. It is part of the general industrial ritual of reducing workers to a number or a letter combination. That way, managers reduce the emotional attachment to the people, and they can fire them more easily. If, instead, you would be Tom, Bill and Biff, there is a risk that the manager would build attachment, and make it harder to treat you bad. If you're IC1, IC2 and IC3, you can be exchanged like machine parts whe…

No that’s not really how it works in tech at all. There’s a deep recognition that individual engineers (and other functional practitioners) have important knowledge and expertise that is essential. Of course you do need some overlap and redundancy so that people can take sick days and avoid the wheels falling off through attrition, but competent shops aren’t ever treating people as numbers. To the contrary good ICs are widely recognized as being much less full-of-shit then management.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#192

Post by jmulho »

bluenose69 wrote: post #178

I work in a university environment. The teaching model is much like that proposed by the originator of this thread. Classes are 50 minutes instead of an hour (and similar for 1.5 hour classes). The start time is 5 minutes past the hour and the end time is 5 minutes before the hour. This gives students and professors enough time to get from one lecture to another (unless they have to commute across a big campus, in wh…

That is because the purpose of meeting is often only to keep the big boss informed of what their team is doing. The team can operate without the meeting. The big boss cannot. Their job is to know what their team is doing.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#193

Post by potato3732842 »

tanvach wrote: post #75

During the pandemic, we had a natural experiment at my previous company. Our org had started an org wise auto ‘meeting starts 5 minute past’ while others had the traditional meetings start on the hour. Also conveniently, we also had the calendar data for internal meetings, internal VC software (not zoom) db that logs the participants when they join and leave meetings and employee function db. I was serendipitously th…

>ICs tend to stick around and over run meetings, while managers tend to leave meetings on time.

That makes 200% sense. A couple or more ICs tend to want to stick around to go off topic or drill down on some thing if they don't have a conflict. People who aren't expressly relevant to that or have a conflict drop at that time.

You're basically seeing the post-meeting hall conversation of the ICs in your data.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#194

Post by fogzen »

wiseowise wrote: post #135
fogzen wrote: post #28

This is the kind of stuff that makes me feel like I’m surrounded by idiots. Waiting for attendance is simply scheduled into the agenda. The first 5 minutes of the agenda is reserved for quorum. There is absolutely no need for making it any more complicated, or playing games with the scheduled time like the post suggests. Childish nonsense.

> The first 5 minutes of the agenda is reserved for quorum > Starts meeting after 5 minutes "Uhm, shall we wait for Jeff?"

If you don’t have quorum the meeting is rescheduled.

“Jeff you didn’t show up to the meeting. What happened?”

Jeff is eventually put on a PIP or fired for not showing up to meetings without notice.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#195

Post by carlmr »

potato3732842 wrote: post #193
tanvach wrote: post #75

During the pandemic, we had a natural experiment at my previous company. Our org had started an org wise auto ‘meeting starts 5 minute past’ while others had the traditional meetings start on the hour. Also conveniently, we also had the calendar data for internal meetings, internal VC software (not zoom) db that logs the participants when they join and leave meetings and employee function db. I was serendipitously th…

>ICs tend to stick around and over run meetings, while managers tend to leave meetings on time. That makes 200% sense. A couple or more ICs tend to want to stick around to go off topic or drill down on some thing if they don't have a conflict. People who aren't expressly relevant to that or have a conflict drop at that time. You're basically seeing the post-meeting hall conversation of the ICs in your data.

Additionally, most meetings are worthless drivel from an IC perspective. The off-topic/drilldown is usually when ICs actually discuss topics relevant to them and get into a level of detail on issues that actually helps further the project.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#196

Post by matula »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #173

When I lead a meeting, I start right on time no matter what. Guess what? People come on time.

Exactly. I had a manager who said "Standup with start exactly on time", and stuck to it. And after a couple of meetings with some people coming in a minute or two late and realizing he was for real... everyone started showing up on time.

No need for hacks, just better managers

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#198

Post by subtlejellyfish »

hnlmorg wrote: post #104
7bit wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That almost sounds insulting. Like management is the only party with vision, drive and a goal and everybody else is just there to help. When often management just manages and true innovation really comes from people of all positions.

The term isn’t used to define everyone who isn’t a manager. It’s used to define people like Lead and Principle Engineers who are a subject matter expert, have influence in defining a project, but have chosen to continue in engineering roles rather than switching to management. Often their position in the company is parallel to the managers rather than subordinates, hence the “individual” part of the term. ICs are gen…

This requires the intentionality of the organization though. They seem to default to managers make the decisions. Ideally, managers manage people, IC execute and you get the "right" people in the room to make decisions, regardless of title or track.

Re: Start your meetings at 5 minutes past

#200

Post by motbus3 »

At my job, when the meeting time is over it is over. So everyone knows that they need to work the thing during the allocated time. People might skip or leave the meeting at any time or simply say they need more context before attending.

Zero BS If there are conflicts, the technical points, pros and cons should be on the table, or at least raise that it seems likely that people will receive those soon.

If the meeting detects a failure, we find a way, if we already completely failed we raise to the upper levels and we refresh the plans. We trust people to be professionals though we understand personal matters can always be on the way.

The counterpart is no one has a career ladder, there is little to no feedback. People can't raise so they leave the company if they are not happy. The only way to take the lead is when someone leaves

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