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Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#31

Post by afarrell »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #27
afarrell wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, what matters is getting your job done. If you hire someone, would you rather they be unproductive and avoid talking about this for fear of appearing entitled? Or would you rather they tell it like it is and get stuff done?

Attending meetings is part of doing your jobs. Meetings exist for a purpose. The whole attitude that all meetings are somehow a waste of your precious time show that you both are unable to grasp what’s happening and are strongly entitled. I’m not surprised to see it fully on display here considering the readership but you have to understand that it’s why people who interact with developers find them hard to work with…

There is a difference between:

A) “All meetings are a waste of time.”

B) “There are productivity tradeoffs between a managers schedule and makers schedule.”

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#33

Post by gregwebs »

orzig wrote: post #17

I’m inclined to agree with all this but when I’m conversation with someone who has only ever been in a Manager schedule, what would you recommend I point to as actual evidence? Specifically on the cost of meetings to developers.

Survey or talk to all the developers and get their opinion on the matter. An objective survey is best along with representative direct quotes.

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#34

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

afarrell wrote: post #31
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attending meetings is part of doing your jobs. Meetings exist for a purpose. The whole attitude that all meetings are somehow a waste of your precious time show that you both are unable to grasp what’s happening and are strongly entitled. I’m not surprised to see it fully on display here considering the readership but you have to understand that it’s why people who interact with developers find them hard to work with…

There is a difference between: A) “All meetings are a waste of time.” B) “There are productivity tradeoffs between a managers schedule and makers schedule.”

The article is pretending that having a meeting not only waste half a day but actually waste a full day. Your point B is not reflective of the actual content we are discussing.

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#35

Post by cebert »

paul_f wrote: post #32

We have no meetings at all, other than one weekly a 30-minute standing meeting. Email or slack and no expectation on response time. Been doing that for 5 years with no problems.

I want to work where you work. We have so many pointless meetings, such as daily standups that can take up to an hour each day.

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#36

Post by BryanBeshore »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #27
afarrell wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, what matters is getting your job done. If you hire someone, would you rather they be unproductive and avoid talking about this for fear of appearing entitled? Or would you rather they tell it like it is and get stuff done?

Attending meetings is part of doing your jobs. Meetings exist for a purpose. The whole attitude that all meetings are somehow a waste of your precious time show that you both are unable to grasp what’s happening and are strongly entitled. I’m not surprised to see it fully on display here considering the readership but you have to understand that it’s why people who interact with developers find them hard to work with…

Most meetings can be done async with a few bullet points. So much time wasted on idle talk that is not productive.

- both a maker and manager

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#37

Post by BryanBeshore »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #34
afarrell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between: A) “All meetings are a waste of time.” B) “There are productivity tradeoffs between a managers schedule and makers schedule.”

The article is pretending that having a meeting not only waste half a day but actually waste a full day. Your point B is not reflective of the actual content we are discussing.

The article suggests that makers tend to take on ambitious projects that take large blocks of time to complete. This is objectively true; even today. Most of what is built is ambitious or takes large chunks of time.

Editing some text or repositioning a button or something trivial is 30-min and does not require thought, but most everything is not this. Most everything involves large chunks of time and interrupting this chunk is certainly a disaster.

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#38

Post by mixmastamyk »

navbaker wrote: post #23
yard2010 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With ADHD it's true, unless I'm on some kind of medication, I need time to get into something and once I'm in it's really hard to stop. So if I'm starting to work on something at 17:30 that could take all my night.. I have to plan my day taking this thing into account

This is enormous, until I finally got a diagnosis and meds a few months ago, I thought everyone just lived in a constant state of frustration about getting knocked out of focus. It’s absolutely unreal the difference now, it feels like I can drop into focus completely at will, even after interruptions! Makes me wonder what I could have accomplished if I’d gotten a diagnosis decades ago

diag of what?

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#39

Post by vegetablepotpie »

navbaker wrote: post #21

Our group of about 65 is split 2/3 researchers and developers and 1/3 project managers/leads. Since our offices are all along one long hall, we’ve had to be extremely proactive about making sure meetings that involve “makers” are kept to a minimum and they are only allowed to be in the morning to allow for guaranteed blocks of work time. We’ve also gotten really intentional about putting our status on whiteboards on…

> 1/3 project managers/leads

That seems quite top heavy. I wonder if your need to be proactive is less driven by the structure of your office and more by the number of bosses you have.

Re: Maker's schedule, Manager's schedule (2009)

#40

Post by navbaker »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #39
navbaker wrote: post #21

Our group of about 65 is split 2/3 researchers and developers and 1/3 project managers/leads. Since our offices are all along one long hall, we’ve had to be extremely proactive about making sure meetings that involve “makers” are kept to a minimum and they are only allowed to be in the morning to allow for guaranteed blocks of work time. We’ve also gotten really intentional about putting our status on whiteboards on…

> 1/3 project managers/leads That seems quite top heavy. I wonder if your need to be proactive is less driven by the structure of your office and more by the number of bosses you have.

We have people from a bunch of other groups working on our projects, we aren’t the only ones
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