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Meeting everyone on a new team

annashipman.co.uk

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Re: Meeting everyone on a new team

#31

Post by Riverheart »

zvorygin wrote: post #20
dv35z wrote: post #11

Perfect timing. I just joined a company this past week as a software engineer. Day one, I knew 5 people, only topically. By the end of week 1, I have introductions/1:1s scheduled for 30+ top-notch people at the organization. Here's the method I used to do this: I created a really comprehensive intro email about myself (work stuff, personal stuff, passions, etc). I wrote this in Google Docs, so it would be easy to pas…

Thank you for posting this! I'm going to be starting a new job sometime soon, and this is giving me all sorts of ideas! Especially thank you for being so comprehensive in your comment. Some questions: What size is your company, and what level of SWE are you? Did your referrals tend to move up the org chart, or stay at the same level? Is your role very broad? I ask this last one because a question like "How do you env…

+1 about the company name.

Re: Meeting everyone on a new team

#32

Post by brnt »

oldprogrammer2 wrote: post #29
Aeolun wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, why would your time not budge? As I’ve become more senior I’ve also been left more and more alone to determine what is important to be doing at any given time.

As an executive, your calendar will fill up fast with meetings, planned and unplanned. 1:1’s with direct reports, 1:1 with your boss, your staff meeting, your boss’ staff meeting. Meetings to manage down, meetings to manage up. Meetings with product, meetings with sales, meetings with operations. Various steering committee meetings to move larger initiatives forward. Meetings with customers and prospective customers.…

I once worked with an exec who had an interesting solution to this: he accepted meetings of 30minutes max. Hard limit (which is a good idea regardless of length ofc).

He was quite senior, so most people wanted to meet him rather than vice versa, so he could 'afford it', which someone in a more junior position probably couldn't pull off.

These meeting were the most effective I've ever experienced. No smalltalk no beating around bushes, there's no time! Regularly I need to discuss 4 to 6 issues with him, which meant my prep needed to be perfect and laser focused. He would read your preparatory docs fortunately, I can't work without unprepared meetings either.

Re: Meeting everyone on a new team

#33

Post by tehjoker »

brnt wrote: post #32
oldprogrammer2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an executive, your calendar will fill up fast with meetings, planned and unplanned. 1:1’s with direct reports, 1:1 with your boss, your staff meeting, your boss’ staff meeting. Meetings to manage down, meetings to manage up. Meetings with product, meetings with sales, meetings with operations. Various steering committee meetings to move larger initiatives forward. Meetings with customers and prospective customers.…

I once worked with an exec who had an interesting solution to this: he accepted meetings of 30minutes max. Hard limit (which is a good idea regardless of length ofc). He was quite senior, so most people wanted to meet him rather than vice versa, so he could 'afford it', which someone in a more junior position probably couldn't pull off. These meeting were the most effective I've ever experienced. No smalltalk no beat…

That works sometimes, but only if it makes sense for one side of the meeting spending the necessary time to make such a presentation. If the meeting takes 2x as long unprepared, but it took you longer to make materials it can be more of a toss up. I wouldn't look at such prep as the hallmark of a good meeting, but more as an adaptation to a particular constraint.

Of course, difficult to communicate ideas (such as in science) require preparation or they are unintelligible and the meetings are a waste of time.

Re: Meeting everyone on a new team

#34

Post by brnt »

tehjoker wrote: post #33
brnt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once worked with an exec who had an interesting solution to this: he accepted meetings of 30minutes max. Hard limit (which is a good idea regardless of length ofc). He was quite senior, so most people wanted to meet him rather than vice versa, so he could 'afford it', which someone in a more junior position probably couldn't pull off. These meeting were the most effective I've ever experienced. No smalltalk no beat…

That works sometimes, but only if it makes sense for one side of the meeting spending the necessary time to make such a presentation. If the meeting takes 2x as long unprepared, but it took you longer to make materials it can be more of a toss up. I wouldn't look at such prep as the hallmark of a good meeting, but more as an adaptation to a particular constraint. Of course, difficult to communicate ideas (such as in…

No prep often means two things:

1) the meeting will be as fast as the slowest reader/understander. Personally I dislike having to wait until the meeting to learn about its content in depth. 2) No recall. Many people do not remember things that weren't written down. Good minutes may help, but given the effort investment I prefer good prep docs. More succinct.

Making good materials usually means you can reuse them, so in my experience that pays for itself.

Re: Meeting everyone on a new team

#35

Post by SergeAx »

That's a great piece, thanks for sharing!

Knowing that engineering teams are overloaded most of the time, I've got that question for first 1:1s: "If you have a week without having to closing tickets, what would you do for the project?" Those are not necessary an items for my to-do list, but clearly showing people's priorities and what they think is really important.

Re: Meeting everyone on a new team

#37

Post by AlphaSite »

ngkaboon wrote: post #23
jrott wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously in any big company who can you go to ask what acronym $TEXAS means is an important question.

seen this pattern work in two orgs - create an online dictionary through a chat bot interface for acronyms

/wtf

which of course stands for, What The deFine?

Re: Meeting everyone on a new team

#39

Post by qznc »

stuart78 wrote: post #25
jrott wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously in any big company who can you go to ask what acronym $TEXAS means is an important question.

In the big company I work for there are several valiantly started and quickly forgotten TLA dictionaries available on various SharePoint sites. Yet none had the few critical ones people were using when I started. Wondered if the popular jargon changed or different groups had splintered their technical talk.

We even have an internal web app. After years, still new acronyms are added every day.

Re: Meeting everyone on a new team

#40

Post by jan_g »

> This is confidential. If you say something about someone else I’m not going to go and tell them.

Warning to all of you in non-managerial position: be very wary of confidentiality proclamations. It happened to me that my manager ran immediately to the CEO, when I said I'm going to start looking for a new job in 3-6 months time. I told him that I specifically don't want this information to leak, but yeah, everybody knew it by the next working day.

Lesson learned: never tell anything sensitive or important in your 1-on-1s with the manager. Except pleasantries, hobbies and other useless stuff.

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