5 ms·

I'm fully aware that the standup could be done on slack or email with similar effectiveness most of the time. However, I still think it's worth it in remote te

by eloff 6y ago

I'm fully aware that the standup could be done on slack or email with similar effectiveness most of the time. However, I still think it's worth it in remote teams. The daily standup is that morning coffee pot discussion with my teammates, before we get on to what we're working on. We make smalltalk and banter a bit. There aren't as many chances to do that in a remote setting, I think it's worth it for that alone. However, often times I'm having a problem that my teammates give valuable ideas or feedback about and visa versa. Or we discuss some hairy edge case and come to a decision about what the behavior should be. So some percent of standups are really valuable.

closeparen 6y ago
One person has a barking dog, the next a screaming child, the next a jackhammer. Several people have no headphones, so there’s brutal echo cancellation. Someone else is on Bluetooth, so there’s half a second latency. At least three are connected by potato. Each word exchanged with a remote team is excruciating. I cannot imagine smalltalk or banter ever being a reasonable thing to do on Zoom.
- cameldrv 6y ago
  If a year into this thing, you can’t manage to get headphones for the whole team, I have no idea how you manage to release software.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    It’s not really in the company’s DNA to be so paternalistic as “you must use wired headphones when connecting to a company Zoom meeting” although perhaps it would help. I’m sure everyone has headphones, but a lot of people choose not to use them or choose to use Bluetooth headphones that are great for music but wreck conversation. Only a few audio nerds have an inkling that this matters, let alone the boldness and clout to change others’ behavior.
    - nilkn 6y ago
      I'm sorry, but your employer is incompetent if they are not working with their remote staff to make sure their equipment is functional and high quality. That doesn't mean they must decree that everyone use wired headphones. It means that they need to proactively make sure each staff member has a solution that actually works. I'm a manager and throughout COVID, whenever I noticed a team member with equipment issues I've worked with them to get it sorted out in a way that pleases them and helps everyone else communicate with them. Being able to communicate is part of the job. If you can't do it for social or technical reasons, I'm going to work with you until you can.
      - nitrogen 6y ago
        Using push-to-talk goes a really long way, too. Everyone should be muted by default and unmute when they need to interject or respond.
    - robjan 6y ago
      We bought our whole team Plantronics Voyager Focus UC headsets. They cost around $250 each but are well worth the background noise cancellation and have excellent sound quality.
      - closeparen 6y ago
        I looked around and couldn’t find the latency for these in the manufacturer’s spec sheet. Do you know what it is? Bluetooth does not bode well - usually hundreds of milliseconds, which is enough to interfere with conversation turn-taking.
        heymijo 6y ago
        closeparen, you're majoring in the minors. I watch a group of twenty kindergarten students (5 and 6 year olds) every day who have figured out how to have effective remote meetings (turn taking, mute by default, etc) and most don't use headphones. Bring up the issue with your team. Pick some norms to try, and iterate until it works. You got this.
  - deckard1 6y ago
    eh. I've been doing remote work for nearly 8 years now. It's always painful. The problem isn't fancy headphones. That's just flippant. It's that mute/unmute and everything has latency. You can't just chime in like in person. It's awkward. "Sorry, what did you say James?" "Oh, I was just going to say..." Talking over each other is much more painful virtually than in person. Jokes land flat. No one laughs because they are on mute. Or possibly didn't hear it due to packet loss or other network/audio issues. I like remote work and can't imagine going back to an office, but I don't go around pretending there aren't serious downsides.
    - rightbyte 6y ago
      It is funny becouse I agree with your points but I don't recall having those problems when gaming with friends over self hosted Ventrilo. Is it a modern SaaS issue?
- eloff 6y ago
  I work remote with people in Europe, South America, North America, and East Asia. The zoom meetings are amazingly good. It really depends on if everyone has a proper remote working setup or not. If your team is remote, that should be a top prority in your company.
- fuzzy2 6y ago
  Haha. Just last week I posted in the intranet about exactly this. The response was telling. Pandemic bad, so cut those poor parents with screaming kids some slack. You cannot understand me because the birds outside are too loud? Please tell me :). I think we should all just communicate. Blah blah. Everyone has decent company-issued headsets. If the company policy is to waste time in meetings, so be it. I get paid either way. I think smalltalk is fine until everyone has finally arrived though.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    Mute is the problem. Or ignorance of it. Part of this is because most meeting software (Webex, Zoom, etc) deprioritizes it. The single most important 2 functions of any meeting software should be: (1) Am I currently muted? (2) Can I toggle my mute status? This used to be solved by a devices called an LED, coupled with a button, back when we had physical phones. Thankfully, we've moved on to more effective solutions. /s
    - closeparen 6y ago
      Zoom is usually acceptable with a single presenter and everyone else muted. The problem is that a true conversation requires several speakers unmuted and sometimes exchanging turns very quickly, with overlap.
    - fuzzy2 6y ago
      Muting doesn’t help if the person with background noise has to talk, unfortunately. I believe that most of the time, background noise can be avoided. Using good microphones, separate rooms, RTX Voice, …
- redisman 6y ago
  I mean thats kind of sad that the team is so helpless to not be able to enable a very low bar for sound quality. How hard is it to buy a headset or a headphone and a microphone to everyone on company dime? At least on all of our teams people are very capable of saying "hey X can you freaking plug your microphone in, we can only hear your neighbors dog"
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  Just have your office administrator ship them good audio gear.
schnevets 6y ago
In the past year, I realized that any routine meeting, no matter how informal or "agile", needs predictability, even if it's just starting the "serious time" 5 minutes after the hour by stating the date and ending the call with a predictable sign-off. I feel like this duty should fall in the Project Manager, but some have balked at me that it sounds "stiff" to deliver, so I take this responsibility. I used to stress about standups ("Will the next 15 minutes be focused on that outstanding Defect on my plate?"), but this added etiquette has helped things go smoothly (or at least I think so... and most colleagues tell me they agree)
alisonkisk 6y ago
Why should everyone start work extra early or late just to start at the same time? Your rationale fails Kantianism. > we discuss some hairy edge case and come to a decision about what the behavior should be. That's not a standup. Banter is great! Now and again, pick a time that works for everyone or even not everyone. But that's not a daily standup.
patrickserrano 6y ago
That's been my experience too and I wish more people shared it or at least valued that interaction more.

by eloff 6y ago

closeparen 6y ago

One person has a barking dog, the next a screaming child, the next a jackhammer. Several people have no headphones, so there’s brutal echo cancellation. Someone else is on Bluetooth, so there’s half a second latency. At least three are connected by potato. Each word exchanged with a remote team is excruciating. I cannot imagine smalltalk or banter ever being a reasonable thing to do on Zoom.

cameldrv 6y ago
If a year into this thing, you can’t manage to get headphones for the whole team, I have no idea how you manage to release software.
- closeparen 6y ago
  It’s not really in the company’s DNA to be so paternalistic as “you must use wired headphones when connecting to a company Zoom meeting” although perhaps it would help. I’m sure everyone has headphones, but a lot of people choose not to use them or choose to use Bluetooth headphones that are great for music but wreck conversation. Only a few audio nerds have an inkling that this matters, let alone the boldness and clout to change others’ behavior.
  - nilkn 6y ago
    I'm sorry, but your employer is incompetent if they are not working with their remote staff to make sure their equipment is functional and high quality. That doesn't mean they must decree that everyone use wired headphones. It means that they need to proactively make sure each staff member has a solution that actually works. I'm a manager and throughout COVID, whenever I noticed a team member with equipment issues I've worked with them to get it sorted out in a way that pleases them and helps everyone else communicate with them. Being able to communicate is part of the job. If you can't do it for social or technical reasons, I'm going to work with you until you can.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Using push-to-talk goes a really long way, too. Everyone should be muted by default and unmute when they need to interject or respond.
  - robjan 6y ago
    We bought our whole team Plantronics Voyager Focus UC headsets. They cost around $250 each but are well worth the background noise cancellation and have excellent sound quality.
    - closeparen 6y ago
      I looked around and couldn’t find the latency for these in the manufacturer’s spec sheet. Do you know what it is? Bluetooth does not bode well - usually hundreds of milliseconds, which is enough to interfere with conversation turn-taking.
      - heymijo 6y ago
        closeparen, you're majoring in the minors. I watch a group of twenty kindergarten students (5 and 6 year olds) every day who have figured out how to have effective remote meetings (turn taking, mute by default, etc) and most don't use headphones. Bring up the issue with your team. Pick some norms to try, and iterate until it works. You got this.
- deckard1 6y ago
  eh. I've been doing remote work for nearly 8 years now. It's always painful. The problem isn't fancy headphones. That's just flippant. It's that mute/unmute and everything has latency. You can't just chime in like in person. It's awkward. "Sorry, what did you say James?" "Oh, I was just going to say..." Talking over each other is much more painful virtually than in person. Jokes land flat. No one laughs because they are on mute. Or possibly didn't hear it due to packet loss or other network/audio issues. I like remote work and can't imagine going back to an office, but I don't go around pretending there aren't serious downsides.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    It is funny becouse I agree with your points but I don't recall having those problems when gaming with friends over self hosted Ventrilo. Is it a modern SaaS issue?
eloff 6y ago
I work remote with people in Europe, South America, North America, and East Asia. The zoom meetings are amazingly good. It really depends on if everyone has a proper remote working setup or not. If your team is remote, that should be a top prority in your company.
fuzzy2 6y ago
Haha. Just last week I posted in the intranet about exactly this. The response was telling. Pandemic bad, so cut those poor parents with screaming kids some slack. You cannot understand me because the birds outside are too loud? Please tell me :). I think we should all just communicate. Blah blah. Everyone has decent company-issued headsets. If the company policy is to waste time in meetings, so be it. I get paid either way. I think smalltalk is fine until everyone has finally arrived though.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  Mute is the problem. Or ignorance of it. Part of this is because most meeting software (Webex, Zoom, etc) deprioritizes it. The single most important 2 functions of any meeting software should be: (1) Am I currently muted? (2) Can I toggle my mute status? This used to be solved by a devices called an LED, coupled with a button, back when we had physical phones. Thankfully, we've moved on to more effective solutions. /s
  - closeparen 6y ago
    Zoom is usually acceptable with a single presenter and everyone else muted. The problem is that a true conversation requires several speakers unmuted and sometimes exchanging turns very quickly, with overlap.
  - fuzzy2 6y ago
    Muting doesn’t help if the person with background noise has to talk, unfortunately. I believe that most of the time, background noise can be avoided. Using good microphones, separate rooms, RTX Voice, …
redisman 6y ago
I mean thats kind of sad that the team is so helpless to not be able to enable a very low bar for sound quality. How hard is it to buy a headset or a headphone and a microphone to everyone on company dime? At least on all of our teams people are very capable of saying "hey X can you freaking plug your microphone in, we can only hear your neighbors dog"
908B64B197 6y ago
Just have your office administrator ship them good audio gear.

schnevets 6y ago

In the past year, I realized that any routine meeting, no matter how informal or "agile", needs predictability, even if it's just starting the "serious time" 5 minutes after the hour by stating the date and ending the call with a predictable sign-off. I feel like this duty should fall in the Project Manager, but some have balked at me that it sounds "stiff" to deliver, so I take this responsibility. I used to stress about standups ("Will the next 15 minutes be focused on that outstanding Defect on my plate?"), but this added etiquette has helped things go smoothly (or at least I think so... and most colleagues tell me they agree)

alisonkisk 6y ago

Why should everyone start work extra early or late just to start at the same time? Your rationale fails Kantianism. > we discuss some hairy edge case and come to a decision about what the behavior should be. That's not a standup. Banter is great! Now and again, pick a time that works for everyone or even not everyone. But that's not a daily standup.

patrickserrano 6y ago

That's been my experience too and I wish more people shared it or at least valued that interaction more.