31–40 of 117 posts
Every meeting should have: * an agenda, so people know what is going to be discussed and the right people can be in the meeting, and how long it might take * expected outcomes - e.g. Are we just discussing something, are we deciding something If those two things aren't done, it's likely not to be an effective meeting.
I'm curious about what everyone considers to be a high frequency of meetings. Two 1-hour team meetings per week, along with a daily 15-minute stand-up meeting. Do you think this frequency is high?
Have weekdays where booked meetings are not allowed. This gives you a ground truth to compare meeting heavy days against.
We had "no meeting Fridays", which were always my most meeting-heavy days, because that's when everyone has a clear schedule!
There are some who believe that meetings are work. If those people are in charge of an organization, there will be tension with people who have real tasks and deliverables. My preferred approach is not to modify the meetings to make them more efficient, but to go on an extremist crusade against all meetings. Insist on asynchronous communication. Create dashboards with whatever metrics are discussed at status update m…
As a lead I used to tick a few people off by occasionally declining meetings. The result is that I developed a mystique, and when I needed to get peoples' attention, I could get it. As an engineer it's important to feel comfortable occasionally declining BS meetings: it reflects more poorly on the person who can't get people to come to their meetings than on you. (Even though people might appear mad at you.) It's als…
My solution was to not accept meetings and have a PM go grab me if they really needed me, that was enough friction to allow me time to get work done. As in your case, this created a bunch of mystique as I was now that guy that showed up in the middle of a meeting, said a bunch of smart things (hopefully!) and then left.
One of the difference about the new Zoom-centric world is that it's zero effort to add an somebody to a meeting "just in case". I push my leads to decline meetings where there is no clear agenda and/or clear idea of the value they can provide. It's ok that your default isn't to hit "accept", it's the meeting organizer's job to convince you that it's worth attending over other priorities.
I actively fight against meeting hell. If I get a meeting request without a specific agenda (I don't split hairs with the definition of "agenda" or "outcome" like the article though), I ask for one and don't accept it otherwise. If the agenda makes it clear that this can be answered via email, I answer it and decline. If I'm in a meeting that seemed reasonable for me to attend, but I'm not adding/receiving value, or…
You're one of the good ones.
The retort to "This meeting could have been an E-mail" is "But, do you respond to your E-mail?" Sometimes we really do need an answer/decision/action, and not everyone has good E-mail hygiene. I have worked with a non-trivial number of people who don't read their E-mail and/or don't respond to it. And when you don't respond, I have no idea whether you even read it, so I have to assume you didn't. When I need someone to do/say something, I will reach for E-mail as a first try, but if you don't respond, I have to put on my Disappointed Face and schedule a meeting :(
I'm curious about what everyone considers to be a high frequency of meetings. Two 1-hour team meetings per week, along with a daily 15-minute stand-up meeting. Do you think this frequency is high?
I'm curious about what everyone considers to be a high frequency of meetings. Two 1-hour team meetings per week, along with a daily 15-minute stand-up meeting. Do you think this frequency is high?
Title says “engineer” but article is solely about computer programmers? Isn’t that computer science? I don’t remember there being a coding engineer at my college…