Meetings are forcing functions • Hacker News Board

Re: Meetings are forcing functions

#121

Post by andrewflnr » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 5:47 AM UTC

ttoinou wrote: post #118

andrewflnr wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone does, I guess. Whoever writes it hopefully read it at least once, though that's not guaranteed these days. Most other people would rather do anything else, so if they can possibly get away with just hearing it, they will. Reading and comprehending is much harder work.

I have the same experience. Literally no one wants to read anything, they will always try to minimize the work done and pretend they've read. And when they've read, they weren't focused and the information isn't used for the project. I have no idea what to do here

I don't know. Weep for the folly of our species? But you have part of your answer about why meetings rehash things. (I assume that's not the only factor.)

Re: Meetings are forcing functions

#122

Post by guest__user » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 10:55 AM UTC

"The key to making progress is maintaining an agenda and, critically, opening each meeting by reviewing the to-dos from the previous one. This creates pressure on everyone to make progress."

this is the kind of advice you need and takes months or years to understand when you are starting out running a club or associative project and yes p much goes for all coordination effort

Re: Meetings are forcing functions

#123

Post by moron4hire » Wed, Apr 29, 2026, 7:57 PM UTC

ArcHound wrote: post #70

moron4hire wrote: post #28

I work at a (ahem) war contractor and at least 50% of my calendar in any week is filled with meetings. As the week progresses, the incidental meetings that people throw at me the day before fill up at least another 25%. I am the chief architect for two major projects, but it does leave me wondering when I'm supposed to be doing any architecting. Oh, and half the company leadership expects me to also stand up a profes…

Hello. For what it's worth, I'm in a similar role (Security Architecture) in a different sector. It's the same here. The trick is to block your calendar with 30min slots to approx. 80% of capacity. If your calendar is private, these won't be challenged. This leaves you some space to do the work, some other space to get random meetings in and if you're lucky, everyone is happy. I think this is the price to pay for a h…

Yeah, I know that trick. It's... semi-effective. Less effective the closer we get to a deadline, which is exactly when I need it to be the most effective.