This blog post is definitely for people that have no desire to ever have social interactions
No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
201–210 of 279 posts
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#202This may sound reasonable, but the world is not black and white. If we turn every quick question into a complete meeting with agenda and whatnot, the organisation will become extremly bureaucratic. And at some point people will start making guesses instead of reaching out to experts because it is just too much work. So in my opinion, the author is a little bit selfish too. The company cannot 100% align with what best…
> So in my opinion, the author is a little bit selfish too. The company cannot 100% align with what best works for you.
No, of course not. It is a scale/grade where balance needs to be found. Unfortunately, in some companies the balance is really off where in order to maintain your sanity you do need to set clear boundaries like this. If not you will not even be able to think clearly as you are in a constant state of being interrupted.
There is also a big difference in the quality of quick questions.
For example.
1. Bad, no context: Hey, quick question.
2. Still not good: Hey, quick question about why Y is part of X (where the reasoning is clearly documented).
3. Better: Hey, I was looking at Y and X and see the reasoning for doing it like this, but I still have some questions about the details.
As far as why I rate these the way I do:
1. certainly is bad because it just means I get a ping, need to respond, need to wait for the answer (being distracted again from what I was doing), etc.
2. Is just a waste of time but is okay enough as I can just point to the documentation and ask to follow up if the question is not covered.
3. Is much better as I know what it is about, you have the right knowledge as well, and now we can actually answer your question in a meaningful way.
Having typed this out I realize I am just repeating the article. Which also does not say that everything needs to be a meeting with a clear agenda. It basically boils down to one thing if you want something from someone make sure to include enough context. It really is not that difficult :)
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the author means "quick call"s. They are not against scheduled calls.
Below a certain threshold, "quick calls" are the best thing to do. Some of the most inspiring discussions come from someone bringing up an issue they have right there and then. Good discussions often start from something that doesn't seem so important, that doesn't have a clear outline from the start. If there isn't the possibility to start a discussion instantly once in a little while, there is a good chance it won'…
> Below a certain threshold, "quick calls" are the best thing to do.
Sure, but give the person you asking for a quick call the context to decide if they also think it is a quick call. All the article basically is asking for is to provide enough context when contacting people.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#204We cannot forget that we also loose something with working remotely (say more than 75% of the time) and that is the occasional bumping into each other at the water cooler or in the morning when coming in. These are situations you can artificially create by scheduling calls to socialize etc, but that is still not comparable with being in an actual office. By categorically saying no to quick calls, you're isolating you…
I actually "bump into" way more people on Slack than I ever did in an office. In threads, various interest channels, random DMs. And the quality of discussion is generally higher too (because of text and async reasons)
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe "flow state" is not the most important thing?
To whom? For my sanity and productivity that's the most important at least. I only enjoy working when I am in that flow state captured by the problem without having to worry about interruptions. This is when I provide most actual value and also get most enjoyment out of work myself. Everything that takes me out of it feels like annoying and frustrating interruptions. And usually I have to then try to not show my frus…
"To whom? For my sanity and productivity that's the most important at least."
Optimizing for you vs the team is often not the goal.
"This is when I provide most actual value and also get most enjoyment out of work myself."
In most companies, it's much more valuable to have a team productive than a single individual, even if it comes at a cost to the individuals.
IE Assume a team of 10, and that working like you suggest provides 1.5x productivity for you, but you working like this cost 0.15x to each other person on the team because you are slower at responding, etc. If it had no effect on anyone else that would be super weird (it would mean nobody depended on anyone, etc. Basically that being a team didn't matter).
Let's assume when you don't work like this, it cost nobody else anything, but is really crappy for you (0.6x)
With you working like this, team productivity is 1.5x+(9*0.85x)= 9.15x. Without you working like this, team productivity is 0.6x + 9x = 9.6x.
Obviously it's different at different numbers and tradeoffs, but optimizing for individual productivity, when it costs things for teams, can often end up a net loss. Not always of course.
You can argue it costs nobody else anything but i think that would honestly be a silly argument. We should admit there are positives and negatives to the tradeoffs here, and sometimes the aggregate works out and sometimes it doesn't.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe "flow state" is not the most important thing?
For a developer, arguably "flow state" is arguably the most important thing. Provided, that is, that requirements are clear and people are in sync what should be worked on. What do you think is the most important, if not flow state?
Team and organizational productivity.
Teams are not a simple sum of independent productivity of individuals. (If they are, it implies they don't need to be a team, since nobody is dependent on anyone else)
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is not incompatible with adding some context in the "quick call invite". Even when I was working from the office, sometimes I would have to say no to someone who was reaching out to me or bumping into me in front of the water fountain because I was in the middle of something. In that case I would just ask to send me a message with some context and I would go back to him/her when I had more time to dedicate on th…
Maybe not incompatible but certainly diminished, the idea is you randomly stumble upon someone’s work or ideas who you wouldn’t have otherwise talked to if it needed to be scheduled, personally I think lunch in person is where this shines the most Productivity doesn’t go down with fully remote work, but I think the kind of creativity that organically comes from ideas being constantly shared and discussed does To be c…
Many fully remote teams or companies host regular more laid back online events.
Where it doesn't work is in hybrid offices because people showing up at the office won't want to connect to some random videocall to do what they do all day every day.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#208I get the point. You want a quick answer, then ask the question directly. I dont think the rule can be applied universally. 1) Cultural norms - This may not work in all environments 2) You have an issue which requires cross function help. Hard to frame a precise question when you dont know which features are the most significant.
> 1) Cultural norms - This may not work in all environments If you have the luxury to pick and choose, going to a company where that works is a huge improvement at large. In my personal experience at least, I've seen no place where the "let me quick call you" is a norm and engineering is also decently respected and paid appropriately. > 2) You have an issue which requires cross function help. Hard to frame a precise…
It would be strange if you used a nail to hit a hammer. There is a degree of picking and choosing the right tool for the right job.
> I've seen no place where the "let me quick call you"
You haven't seen places where people say "Hi?", especially in the context of remote work?
>...decide who should be part of the meeting
This would be where "could we have a call?" matters,
As said first, words used with purpose provide a specific utility.
Nor did I mention messaging a whole channel? Whatever the situation you are envisioning, it is of your own experience that looks to be bleeding in.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience forced online water cooler talk has never worked and was always incredibly awkward and boring.
Surely the C-suites of the company will employ whatever brilliant ideas that we talk over the water cooler. The water cooler is the fountain of innovation after all. Perhaps they should put all the water coolers in the executives' offices, so they can listen to all the brilliant conversations that take place at the water cooler.
To be fair, when i worked at IBM Research (Watson), there were collaboration areas at the end of each hall.
They got used quite often, and there are plenty of times where someone noticed another team or person working on something and discovered it applied to what they were doing and collaborated.
One example from an area i know well - if you look at static single assignment form for compilers, which is the basis of all optimizing compilers these days, two people came up with the static single assignment part, but had no idea how to create it fast , and ran into some others whiteboarding control dependence for other reasons, and realized that it solved their problem.
This is why the paper (https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~pingali/CS380C/2010/papers/ssaCyt...) has five authors and reads like one written by two different teams :)
I think the better argument is that it's not how newer generations seem to collaborate or operate, not that it never worked at all.
It definitely did work in the past.
Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda
#210We cannot forget that we also loose something with working remotely (say more than 75% of the time) and that is the occasional bumping into each other at the water cooler or in the morning when coming in. These are situations you can artificially create by scheduling calls to socialize etc, but that is still not comparable with being in an actual office. By categorically saying no to quick calls, you're isolating you…
I completely disagree.
I’ve done plenty of meetings in a remote only setting where at the end I say “if anyone wants to hang and chat about things further, or just hang out and socialise, feel free to stick around”.
People get to choose if they stay. It’s at a natural context switch (end of meeting). It’s deliberately informal and not organised (“hey, let’s just hang for a bit”).
The opportunities are there to achieve the same goal as the water cooler.
When I see people lamenting what has been “lost” I usually read it as “I don’t want to look for alternative solutions”.