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I am afraid the company I work for is falling into meeting culture. When do you guys draw the line. We (developers) have started to loose our Monday and sometim

by ramy_d 16y ago

I am afraid the company I work for is falling into meeting culture. When do you guys draw the line. We (developers) have started to loose our Monday and sometimes Wednesday mornings because of this and I'm thinking of talking to some people to change the situation.

CapitalistCartr 16y ago
The problem is: if you bow out of meetings individually, it harms your career at the company. So once meetings are called, it's in the best interest of each person to be in them. Not being in a meeting implies that one is not sufficiently important. The only way to control meeting fever is for the person on top to rein them in.
- ramy_d 16y ago
  catch 22 :(
- spc476 16y ago
  And here I thought that if a meeting could start without you, then you aren't important to that meeting, and thus, why attend?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
InclinedPlane 16y ago
The simplest advice I've seen to fight this is to use defensive scheduling. Block out most of your work-day/week with meetings with yourself and reject conflicting meeting requests. People who try to schedule meetings with you will see the conflict and probably try to avoid it to start with, plus it's easier to justify not going to meetings if you have a conflict, even if it's just time you've blocked out for yourself to get things done. Additionally, if you are able you can work from home fairly often, making sure to mention that it's to concentrate on specific tasks, you'll miss all your meetings for that day but you'll get work done. More often than not nobody will think poorly of you, and your increased productivity will be fairly apparent.
VengefulCynic 16y ago
In my mind the biggest question is "do your managers see this and understand it to be a problem?" If your managers think that a meeting culture is a good/desireable thing, no amount of lobbying by a single engineer (or even a small group of them) is liable to fix the situation. On the other hand, if your managers agree with you, you have readily-available allies in your fight to fix the culture.
- wisty 16y ago
  Meetings have a use. Meetings are a good palliative for ownership and trust issues. If nobody is responsible for a feature or decision; or worse several people are responsible, and people don't really trust each other to make the right choice, then meetings can force everyone to "get on the same page". Managers should realize that when decisions are getting made in a meeting that someone needs ownership of an area, or the owner isn't trusted by the people that area influences. As an example, if coding style is debated in meetings, someone needs to the "coding style boss". If there already is someone in charge of coding style, then they need to communicate better. This would also apply to more important things than coding style ... but it's a good example of something where the cost/benefits of addressing it in meetings approaches infinity.
grinich 16y ago
Are they useful? What would happen if you just didn't go?

by ramy_d 16y ago

CapitalistCartr 16y ago

The problem is: if you bow out of meetings individually, it harms your career at the company. So once meetings are called, it's in the best interest of each person to be in them. Not being in a meeting implies that one is not sufficiently important. The only way to control meeting fever is for the person on top to rein them in.

ramy_d 16y ago
catch 22 :(
spc476 16y ago
And here I thought that if a meeting could start without you, then you aren't important to that meeting, and thus, why attend?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

InclinedPlane 16y ago

The simplest advice I've seen to fight this is to use defensive scheduling. Block out most of your work-day/week with meetings with yourself and reject conflicting meeting requests. People who try to schedule meetings with you will see the conflict and probably try to avoid it to start with, plus it's easier to justify not going to meetings if you have a conflict, even if it's just time you've blocked out for yourself to get things done. Additionally, if you are able you can work from home fairly often, making sure to mention that it's to concentrate on specific tasks, you'll miss all your meetings for that day but you'll get work done. More often than not nobody will think poorly of you, and your increased productivity will be fairly apparent.

VengefulCynic 16y ago

In my mind the biggest question is "do your managers see this and understand it to be a problem?" If your managers think that a meeting culture is a good/desireable thing, no amount of lobbying by a single engineer (or even a small group of them) is liable to fix the situation. On the other hand, if your managers agree with you, you have readily-available allies in your fight to fix the culture.

wisty 16y ago
Meetings have a use. Meetings are a good palliative for ownership and trust issues. If nobody is responsible for a feature or decision; or worse several people are responsible, and people don't really trust each other to make the right choice, then meetings can force everyone to "get on the same page". Managers should realize that when decisions are getting made in a meeting that someone needs ownership of an area, or the owner isn't trusted by the people that area influences. As an example, if coding style is debated in meetings, someone needs to the "coding style boss". If there already is someone in charge of coding style, then they need to communicate better. This would also apply to more important things than coding style ... but it's a good example of something where the cost/benefits of addressing it in meetings approaches infinity.

grinich 16y ago

Are they useful? What would happen if you just didn't go?