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No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

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Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#31

Post by sanitycheck »

I agree with this entirely, and have griped about it to people (and here) before.

But I would never, under any but the most egregious circumstances, complain directly to a colleague who does it or (especially) send them this link.

People are different, and most people are different to me. I'm getting paid partly to deal with other people, so that's what I'll (sometimes grudgingly) do. If they're doing this all the time to each-other, my productivity is still going to be relatively high anyway.

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#32

Post by meowface »

jstimpfle wrote: post #24
simonmysun wrote: post #17

Earlier 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'…

>Good discussions often start from something that doesn't seem so important, that doesn't have a clear outline from the start.

Yes, but I've never once had a "can we hop on a quick call?" turn into that. Almost every single one of those that I've encountered could've been settled in a handful of chat messages. The things you describe happen to me during unplanned asides in meetings, long-term general chat channels, or impromptu in-person chatting.

My impression has been that the people who want a quick 1-on-1 call just don't like typing.

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#33

Post by daghamm »

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 works for you.

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#35

Post by prmoustache »

rethab wrote: post #29

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…

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 that.

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#36

Post by malux85 »

cryptoboy2283 wrote: post #2

The level of entitlement in this post is ridiculous. Dude. You're just an engineer from an Engineering department of some company. Nobody's gonna read & apply any special rules of communnicating with you, especially written by yourself (sic!)

I thought this was excellent, and I would enjoy working with people like this

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#37

Post by prmoustache »

ckastner wrote: post #8

For larger enterprises with complex org charts, I consider an agenda one of two invaluable tools for meetings, the other being post-meeting minutes including a RACI chart. If someone can't think up a few bullet points for a meeting in advance, that person has not prepared for their meeting, and will waste some of the participant's time. Not creating (one-line) minutes that most importantly include decisions that have…

Most times that person not preparing the call with an agenda is told in the middle of the meeting that he should have invited someone else that has knowledge on some key point and it ends up needing another meeting to be scheduled. With more context, people may have told him prior to the meeting that person needed to be included to.

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#38

Post by widowlark »

daghamm wrote: post #33

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…

The authors approach, in my opinion, will lead to nothing but confrontation and probably decrease productivity significantly. Then again, it sounds like that's the goal

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#39

Post by makeitdouble »

intended wrote: post #18

I 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 question when you don't know which features are the most significant.

You'll need more investigation either way, I'm not even sure you'll be able to properly decide who should be part of the meeting. The whole "who should I talk to" can be potentially be done better by chat, where you ask a whole group at once who's concerned by your problem and further narrow down as you get pointers.

Messaging a whole channel at once will probably be better accepted than inviting random people at a meeting to realize none of them were concerned.

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#40

Post by worldsayshi »

cj wrote: post #5

At a certain point it just doesn't make sense to over-optimize for productivity, when the sacrifice (being pleasant & accessible to coworkers) isn't worth the gain (more focus time coding).

Sometimes it seems that we're over focused on efficiency as opposed to effectiveness. And I get it, because it's very hard to "be both". You can either spend your day coding away solving problems or you can spend your day discussing with people figuring out what the problem is. Both pursuits have clear failure modes; you can spend a lot of time trying to understand the problem better without really getting anywhere and you can spend a lot of time solving the wrong problem. How do you know when you have the right balance? 50/50?
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