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What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

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Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#131

Post by 9dev »

9rx wrote: post #123
fn-mote wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a super cynical reply to a manager (engineering head) who said they would prefer people to tell them in the meeting what’s going wrong. I would certainly be glad to have someone like that over my division.

What is cynical about reassuring a leader that they aren't needed? You've failed as a leader if you find yourself being needed.

What do you mean by "needed" here? If leaders weren't needed in some capacity, they wouldn't exist. Teams definitely do need leaders, to simply agree on a direction to move into to begin with.

If you're of the opinion that management plays their politics game while ICs run the show, then I pity you for the work environment you're in. That isn't how it's supposed to work, and there are better places.

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#132

Post by theshrike79 »

9dev wrote: post #20
judge123 wrote: post #6

this feels like advice for the person running the meeting, not the one being dragged into it. I'm just picturing myself telling my boss "Sorry, this meeting doesn't have a clear goal, so I'm dropping off." Anyone actually have the guts to do this when you're not the senior person in the room?

Can't speak for your boss, but I definitely am sometimes a few abstraction layers further up in concepts than the ICs on the team, and it's a lot more frustrating to realise the others don't really know what I'm getting at because I didn't create clear enough goals than getting that feedback right away. People in leadership usually get there because they value time and efficiency, and if you don't spin that as "your…

I had a deal with one engineer on my team, when I used to do that boss crap.

Their body had to be present in the meeting, but they could keep working on their laptop.

This was because WAAAY too much of the silent information about the company products was on their mind and it was by far the fastest way to get it out.

I could just quickly refer to them for 15 seconds to clarify how something actually worked and keep on with the meeting.

...also they once got bored during a sales meeting and coded a full-ass PoC about what the customer was asking during the meeting. That kind of person.

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#133

Post by theshrike79 »

taherchhabra wrote: post #5

At my ex employer, every employee had an hourly rate in the system, I had thought of pulling the rates from the internal system into Microsoft teams, to display the cost of every meeting.

We thought about this in 2002 already :)

"Meeting cost calculator" where the cost of the meeting would tick up in real time on the wall.

IIRC the idea was to have everyone tap their keyfob on a reader and it'd get everyone's hourly salary from a database and start counting the price by the minute.

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#135

Post by HexPhantom »

duxup wrote: post #64

>agenda I once worked at a company that had something like 3 to 5k employees. Everyone had to take an online class (about 8 hours) about effective meetings. Rule 1 was to have an agenda available in the meeting invite. I loved this, it made for FAR more productive meetings. Nobody at the company that I knew of outside myself and one other person had agendas available for our meetings, including leadership. I think se…

Classic case of "do as I say, not as I calendar."

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#136

Post by HexPhantom »

pjc50 wrote: post #23

Agenda + minutes, in however minimal a form, is crucial. A meeting with no minutes and no agenda and a warm drink is just a tea party. Not that that doesn't have a role in organizations, but it shouldn't dominate your time. Most standups are therefore tea parties. A previous boss of mine even used to bring biscuits, which was nice. It serves the role of reminding everyone that each other exists and are collaborating…

While standups often drift into ceremonial territory, the social/presence aspect isn't nothing

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#137

Post by 9rx »

9dev wrote: post #131
9rx wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is cynical about reassuring a leader that they aren't needed? You've failed as a leader if you find yourself being needed.

What do you mean by "needed" here? If leaders weren't needed in some capacity, they wouldn't exist. Teams definitely do need leaders, to simply agree on a direction to move into to begin with. If you're of the opinion that management plays their politics game while ICs run the show, then I pity you for the work environment you're in. That isn't how it's supposed to work, and there are better places.

> Teams definitely do need leaders

Do they? The entire Agile Manifesto was written about how teams don't need leaders. That doesn't automatically make it valid, of course, but industry was all over it for a time. An entire industry got it wrong? Yes, it wasn't long before "leaders" afraid of losing their job bastardized it into some kind of management framework with nonsense like Scrum[1], granted, but industry support for it also died in that moment. What does that tell you?

> If leaders weren't needed in some capacity, they wouldn't exist.

False premise. The world is full of all kinds of things that exist but aren't needed.

> If you're of the opinion that management plays their politics game while ICs run the show, then I pity you for the work environment you're in.

I'm not really sure what this means. It doesn't seem to have any connection to the original discussion. Where are you going with this?

> That isn't how it's supposed to work, and there are better places.

How is what supposed to work?

--

[1] To be fair, Scrum considers itself "training wheels" for Agile. It clearly indicates it is something to use for a short period of time to wean yourself off malformed leadership practices as you transition into Agile. If used as written, it may be a useful tool. But when have you ever seen that happen in practice? In reality, when you find it in use, "leadership" has enforced its use — often modified to their arbitrary fancy — and never let go like it suggests you need to.

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#138

Post by 9dev »

9rx wrote: post #137
9dev wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "needed" here? If leaders weren't needed in some capacity, they wouldn't exist. Teams definitely do need leaders, to simply agree on a direction to move into to begin with. If you're of the opinion that management plays their politics game while ICs run the show, then I pity you for the work environment you're in. That isn't how it's supposed to work, and there are better places.

> Teams definitely do need leaders Do they? The entire Agile Manifesto was written about how teams don't need leaders. That doesn't automatically make it valid, of course, but industry was all over it for a time. An entire industry got it wrong? Yes, it wasn't long before "leaders" afraid of losing their job bastardized it into some kind of management framework with nonsense like Scrum[1], granted, but industry suppo…

> The entire Agile Manifesto was written about how teams don't need leaders.

Have you read a different manifesto than I did? It spoke of empowered developers and self-organised teams, but never about leaders no longer being required. I'd even say it is directed at leaders to improve the structure of their development teams.

> I'm not really sure what this means. It doesn't seem to have any connection to the original discussion. Where are you going with this?

You seem to imply—at least that's how I understood it—that leaders aren't needed and ICs do their thing regardless of what managers do. Which to me sounds like plain ineffective leadership, not an inherent truth.

We may agree to disagree, but I don't see an entire organisation (not just a single team of developers within a larger organisation) to work completely devoid of leadership. My developers should not have to put up with customer success, or business requirements, or budget constraints. They should focus on working on the product as directed by the product owner. My role is clearing the path in front of the team, keeping distractions at bay, planning ahead for technological changes, and aligning the product trajectory with the company vision. These are things you just cannot do properly while simultaneously focusing on the finer details of application code. And even more importantly, most people I know appreciate good leadership that helps them perform well, and guides them forward. I realise that's subjective though.

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#139

Post by 9rx »

9dev wrote: post #138
9rx wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teams definitely do need leaders Do they? The entire Agile Manifesto was written about how teams don't need leaders. That doesn't automatically make it valid, of course, but industry was all over it for a time. An entire industry got it wrong? Yes, it wasn't long before "leaders" afraid of losing their job bastardized it into some kind of management framework with nonsense like Scrum[1], granted, but industry suppo…

> The entire Agile Manifesto was written about how teams don't need leaders. Have you read a different manifesto than I did? It spoke of empowered developers and self-organised teams, but never about leaders no longer being required. I'd even say it is directed at leaders to improve the structure of their development teams. > I'm not really sure what this means. It doesn't seem to have any connection to the original…

> My developers should not have to put up with customer success, or business requirements, or budget constraints.

Au contraire. You are right that there is only so much time in the day and that not every IC can be deeply engrossed in this, but all should be involved in at least some surface capacity. This is the most important part of the software development process! To remove your software people from it is complete insanity. It being treated as something different under a "leadership" umbrella is the most horrid thing ever seen in the software industry. This is echoed in the Agile Manifest (Twelve Principles), as you know.

And maybe that's what you really mean — that you're an IC who spends less time on code and more time on business problems? That's not what is usually implied by "leadership", but it is understood that anyone can make up random definitions on the spot.

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