261–270 of 279 posts
Each of the ideas in here is solid, but there's too much writing around the core idea -- a sentence or two for each point and then a tldr like "put in some basic level of effort if you're going to ask for others' valuable time." would do it for me personally.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 provid…
The whole bit from the article:
> > You started a conversation by writing "Hi", or "Hello", or even maybe "Good morning Sebastian, I have a question". And then you waited. And waited. And waited for minutes (or hours if I was busy and you were patient) without a single word explaining what problem you were facing.
Yes, I've seen this in places, many places. Most times the person doing it immediately got guidance to stop doing it.
The only place where it persisted was a small shop where the founder and managers would also be doing it, and the technical team was leaking away at a speed I couldn't check for very long, as I was out pretty fast too. That could be one of the most clear sign they don't give a damn about online communication and won't care to adapt.
>...decide who should be part of the meeting
TBH I'm not sure to understand your answer. Of course I'm talking from my own experience, how could I speak for you ? Also, calls are costly, using them to understand who you're actually supposed to call feels wasteful. That can be done completely asynchronously in most cases.
We 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…
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How so? There is no excuse for sending a meeting invite without an explanation as to what will be discussed or what you hope to achieve. That just results in aimless meetings that either have too many unnecessary attendees or missing people who do need to attend. When someone asks you to provide an agenda for a meeting, do you really just ignore them?
I don't know, but let me hypothesise. When you work with complex stuff, there will always be one or two urgent meetings where the caller doesn't have time or the data to set up a proper agenda. A meeting invite saying "oh shit, all hands on deck" does not need to be due to bad planning. Obviously this should not be the norm, but when it happens you cannot simply instruct your people to ignore it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 provid…
> You haven't seen places where people say "Hi?", especially in the context of remote work? The whole bit from the article: > > You started a conversation by writing "Hi", or "Hello", or even maybe "Good morning Sebastian, I have a question". And then you waited. And waited. And waited for minutes (or hours if I was busy and you were patient) without a single word explaining what problem you were facing. Yes, I've se…
1) that experience, is already captured in the article.
2) I am presenting specific, different scenarios where the derived advice does not hold.
You are reiterating point 1.
I do not see any new information being added. Perhaps you can specify what is the new insight, or refinement, in your information.
Moreover there are studies showing that if people socialize and get to know each other a bit before working together, there are more chances to collaborate and to reduce conflicts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know, but let me hypothesise. When you work with complex stuff, there will always be one or two urgent meetings where the caller doesn't have time or the data to set up a proper agenda. A meeting invite saying "oh shit, all hands on deck" does not need to be due to bad planning. Obviously this should not be the norm, but when it happens you cannot simply instruct your people to ignore it.
I hate to say it, but dealing with high priority incidents with a meeting invite saying "oh shit, all hands on deck" and no further information does not sound healthy. The organisation should have a proper incident response plan in place setting out communication standards and channels.
This should never be the norm. But when the work is challenging and non-trivial something like this happens once in a while.
This 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…
Yep. Frankly, these articles are just keyboard warrior antics from introverts that are feeling on top of the world with the wave of WFH. Conflating “what’ll get me back to my IDE faster” and “how can I make all communication so structured that I never have to genuinely interact with anyone at work on a human level” with an actual increase in productivity is just a sign of immense naivety. Thankfully these people tend…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate to say it, but dealing with high priority incidents with a meeting invite saying "oh shit, all hands on deck" and no further information does not sound healthy. The organisation should have a proper incident response plan in place setting out communication standards and channels.
I think you are misunderstanding my message. This should never be the norm. But when the work is challenging and non-trivial something like this happens once in a while.
> If you don't make time for back channel sync, you will become an isolated island and your product will eventually suffer.
This doesn't seem to align with your hypothetical example. Of course, for project sync, there should be regular sync meetings, and cross value stream meetings. There should also be design reviews and retrospectives (both regular and ad hoc). It would not be appropriate to schedule any of these without an agenda or scope.