3 ms·

Kill Our Meeting Culture

32 points by dpflan 11y ago

dpflan 11y ago
37Signals had a blog post a few years on the related topic that 'meetings are toxic'. [1]. [1.] https://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Meetings_Are_Toxic.php https://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Meetings_Are_Toxic.ph...
orestes910 11y ago
I think he's being diplomatic in not bringing up another reason for meetings. Some people make their career around them, especially management. When it comes to decision making, most team sizes simply don't produce enough decisions to fill a manager's 40+ hour work week. Meetings act as a method of elongating those decisions into multiple hour ordeals. Quit hiring pure managers below the executive level and make use of working managers instead.
exelius 11y ago
Here's my answer to these meetings: I just stopped going to them. If you ask people why they go, it's generally to "see and be seen as working hard". But in general, the people that matter don't attend these pointless meetings: they send their least qualified subordinates in their place because they're the only ones with time to go. You don't need a weekly meeting to deliver a status update. You need a single e-mail once a week. Or better yet, just use whatever project management/bug tracking system and create a dashboard so you don't even need to meet. All you have to do then is have the project/scrum master harass people to log their tickets (which they are probably already doing anyway). The real decisions are made one-on-one anyway -- meetings are just a place where people posture and take credit for things.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Devthrowaway80 11y ago
  Peopleware has a great line about "status meetings" really being meetings about status - as enforcing the manager/subordinate role, or "look at how productive I am" image or so on. They aren't to accomplish actual work or communicate.
krosaen 11y ago
yes, bad meetings are bad. on the flip side, I've noticed something creeping up within 'no meeting' culture: constant distraction in slack or hipchat. I'd rather sit down and resolve something in 15 minutes with 2 people than to constantly have to check back on whatever thread happened in a slack channel.

32 points by dpflan 11y ago

37Signals had a blog post a few years on the related topic that 'meetings are toxic'. [1]. [1.] https://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Meetings_Are_Toxic.php https://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Meetings_Are_Toxic.ph...

orestes910 11y ago

I think he's being diplomatic in not bringing up another reason for meetings. Some people make their career around them, especially management. When it comes to decision making, most team sizes simply don't produce enough decisions to fill a manager's 40+ hour work week. Meetings act as a method of elongating those decisions into multiple hour ordeals. Quit hiring pure managers below the executive level and make use of working managers instead.

exelius 11y ago

Here's my answer to these meetings: I just stopped going to them. If you ask people why they go, it's generally to "see and be seen as working hard". But in general, the people that matter don't attend these pointless meetings: they send their least qualified subordinates in their place because they're the only ones with time to go. You don't need a weekly meeting to deliver a status update. You need a single e-mail once a week. Or better yet, just use whatever project management/bug tracking system and create a dashboard so you don't even need to meet. All you have to do then is have the project/scrum master harass people to log their tickets (which they are probably already doing anyway). The real decisions are made one-on-one anyway -- meetings are just a place where people posture and take credit for things.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Devthrowaway80 11y ago
Peopleware has a great line about "status meetings" really being meetings about status - as enforcing the manager/subordinate role, or "look at how productive I am" image or so on. They aren't to accomplish actual work or communicate.

krosaen 11y ago

yes, bad meetings are bad. on the flip side, I've noticed something creeping up within 'no meeting' culture: constant distraction in slack or hipchat. I'd rather sit down and resolve something in 15 minutes with 2 people than to constantly have to check back on whatever thread happened in a slack channel.