"Google does weekly emails"
Practices at Google vary widely between teams. Nothing as trivial as this is going to standardized across the company...
An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings
21–30 of 51 posts
Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I notice that people have a habit of ignoring my emails, I instant-message them after I send the email. If that doesn't work, I call them. If that doesn't work I walk over to their desk. If they're not at their desk, or in another building, I email their boss and ask whether the person is taking a day off. Believe it or not, people stopped ignoring my emails.
Surprise! You're in 615 Dilbert comics!
I totally know!
Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings
#23Tired of these self promoting articles.
"An alternative to stand-up meetings" -> We use our product. Oh, shameless plug, try it.
What's even more frustrating is how they game the upvote to reach front-page. So, not only it's a disguised article, but it also hide more interesting ones.
Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings
#24I dunno... I feel like if I'm totally honest, there's a good chance I would wind up just ignoring 90% of those e-mails, or at least not reading them carefully enough. For me, I feel like the benefit of a stand-up is exactly that it forces everyone to pay attention and meet for 5 min, not just so that everything important gets communicated, but that everyone knows everyone else heard it. And people can ask important q…
When I notice that people have a habit of ignoring my emails, I instant-message them after I send the email. If that doesn't work, I call them. If that doesn't work I walk over to their desk. If they're not at their desk, or in another building, I email their boss and ask whether the person is taking a day off. Believe it or not, people stopped ignoring my emails.
I'm really glad I don't work with you.
Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings
#25I dunno... I feel like if I'm totally honest, there's a good chance I would wind up just ignoring 90% of those e-mails, or at least not reading them carefully enough. For me, I feel like the benefit of a stand-up is exactly that it forces everyone to pay attention and meet for 5 min, not just so that everything important gets communicated, but that everyone knows everyone else heard it. And people can ask important q…
> but that everyone knows everyone else heard it. How about simply having a company policy that everyone should MVCC their decisions based on received email "transactions"? I.e., if someone sends out an email, then everyone else MUST (in the RFC sense of MUST) read it and digest it before making any new decisions. It still operates asynchronously--you can finish whatever you were head-down working on before checking…
The problem to correct itself is all this bullshit TPS reporting hidden behind fancy new buzzwords and "methodologies".
My rule is: if something affects my work, put it in my TODO list. If I am a Devops engineer, reading emails or standing up in a circle (jerk) pretending to listen carefully and understand what designer X, mobile developer Y and product manager Z did the day before or plan to do today is a waste of my time and theirs.
Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings
#26I dunno... I feel like if I'm totally honest, there's a good chance I would wind up just ignoring 90% of those e-mails, or at least not reading them carefully enough. For me, I feel like the benefit of a stand-up is exactly that it forces everyone to pay attention and meet for 5 min, not just so that everything important gets communicated, but that everyone knows everyone else heard it. And people can ask important q…
When I notice that people have a habit of ignoring my emails, I instant-message them after I send the email. If that doesn't work, I call them. If that doesn't work I walk over to their desk. If they're not at their desk, or in another building, I email their boss and ask whether the person is taking a day off. Believe it or not, people stopped ignoring my emails.
Good lord I hope this is sarcasm.
Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings
#27This might be a good alternative for someplace like my company where team members are in different time zones. When I'm getting to work around 9 in SF, it's already evening for the team members in Bulgaria.
Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings
#28I think people make a mistake when they assume that the stand-up is about an exchange of data. It's not. It's a social construct. Technology development, especially in a team, is a social activity. We need to create social rituals for it to work at maximum efficiency.
The "bugs" he sees in the process, "synchronous, everyone needs to be in the room (or on the phone), and often after the meeting much of the content is lost" -- those are features.
People need to synchronize for social purposes. They need body language to help debug subtle performance issues. They need to have problems shoved in their face to either act on or forget.
That's all great stuff.
Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, the point of a standup meeting is to spark conversations; the status information everyone reports is really secondary and a convenient excuse to get everyone face-to-face and talking. And this type of interaction happens much more easily when everyone is in the same location at the same time.
Yes, and those are exactly the rambling 30 minute standups everyone hates.
I agree, and if your standups are longer then ten minutes, you're doing it wrong. You need to (politely) stop the rambling and suggest that interested parties talk after the standup. The idea is to spark conversations, not waste everyone's time.
Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings
#30I think people make a mistake when they assume that the stand-up is about an exchange of data. It's not. It's a social construct. Technology development, especially in a team, is a social activity. We need to create social rituals for it to work at maximum efficiency. The "bugs" he sees in the process, "synchronous, everyone needs to be in the room (or on the phone), and often after the meeting much of the content is…
There is evidence that stand-up meetings are indeed a social construct: the meetings are functionally useless and the content is redundant (or at least should be redundant - nobody waits until the next morning to address a blocking issue). The only plausible justification must be social.