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When trying to minimize meetings across my team, I have found Google Calendar to be the enemy. Anyone in the company (or even externally) can just put an event

When trying to minimize meetings across my team, I have found Google Calendar to be the enemy. Anyone in the company (or even externally) can just put an event on your calendar, the default is 1 hour, and expect people to attend the meeting because “it’s on the calendar”. There is no way to enforce some kind of policy (no-meeting hours/days, max time, max attendees). Any tips for restricting GC?

sigfubar 8y ago
The “Decline” button is there for a reason. You can configure Google Calendar to delete declined events from your calendar. Your response will show up on the other participants’ calendars as well, so they’ll know that you’re not coming and will either proceed without you or reschedule. You can also propose an alternate time, which can be seen as less standoffish.
- vincentmarle 8y ago
  > You can configure Google Calendar to delete declined events from your calendar. Ah that would be very helpful. The thing is, as engineering manager and gatekeeper to my team, I would like to make those RSVP decisions for people on my team. We can solve this with organizational/communication policies, but was hoping to enforce within GC as well.
  - sigfubar 8y ago
    I’ve been in your shoes. Hats off to you for trying to do right by your team. I’ve had success with coaching my employees to refuse any meeting invite that would not directly help them do a better job. We’ve come up with verbiage to help redirect meetings to me so that no hard feelings could crystallize on the other side. This works except in a small minority of cases: some individual contributors enjoy their meetings. It’s not my place to stop them.
    - wastedhours 8y ago
      > This works except in a small minority of cases: some individual contributors enjoy their meetings. Also in a small minority of cases breaking up a developer flow to provide on the ground context in a meeting is better for the organisation than keeping the developer in-flow for another hour. Rarely, I'll concede, but it's worth remembering that few developers are paid to "code", but to create value for the organisation. The vast majority of the time that's done by coding, but sometimes (in those rare moments) that value is derived from a meeting.
sincerely 8y ago
make your own events on the calendar during the time you don’t want to be in meetings
- wastedhours 8y ago
  Yep, schedule "work blocks" in the calendar - it's usually a good way to combat frivolous meetings, and if something's important, then they'll probably schedule it over anything in any case.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Maybe the company needs a positive consent policy, only persons who respond "going" will be assumed to be present?

sigfubar 8y ago

The “Decline” button is there for a reason. You can configure Google Calendar to delete declined events from your calendar. Your response will show up on the other participants’ calendars as well, so they’ll know that you’re not coming and will either proceed without you or reschedule. You can also propose an alternate time, which can be seen as less standoffish.

vincentmarle 8y ago
> You can configure Google Calendar to delete declined events from your calendar. Ah that would be very helpful. The thing is, as engineering manager and gatekeeper to my team, I would like to make those RSVP decisions for people on my team. We can solve this with organizational/communication policies, but was hoping to enforce within GC as well.
- sigfubar 8y ago
  I’ve been in your shoes. Hats off to you for trying to do right by your team. I’ve had success with coaching my employees to refuse any meeting invite that would not directly help them do a better job. We’ve come up with verbiage to help redirect meetings to me so that no hard feelings could crystallize on the other side. This works except in a small minority of cases: some individual contributors enjoy their meetings. It’s not my place to stop them.
  - wastedhours 8y ago
    > This works except in a small minority of cases: some individual contributors enjoy their meetings. Also in a small minority of cases breaking up a developer flow to provide on the ground context in a meeting is better for the organisation than keeping the developer in-flow for another hour. Rarely, I'll concede, but it's worth remembering that few developers are paid to "code", but to create value for the organisation. The vast majority of the time that's done by coding, but sometimes (in those rare moments) that value is derived from a meeting.

sincerely 8y ago

make your own events on the calendar during the time you don’t want to be in meetings

wastedhours 8y ago
Yep, schedule "work blocks" in the calendar - it's usually a good way to combat frivolous meetings, and if something's important, then they'll probably schedule it over anything in any case.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

Maybe the company needs a positive consent policy, only persons who respond "going" will be assumed to be present?