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> Others said they had so many meetings they couldn't possibly find enough time to have that many meetings in a day (doesn't make sense to me but that's a direc

> Others said they had so many meetings they couldn't possibly find enough time to have that many meetings in a day (doesn't make sense to me but that's a direct quote). My manager absolutely has more than 8 hours of meetings ina given week, and not jut useless ones. I've seen calendars of people a level or two above me where several days a week are wall-to-wall meetings. I don't think it's all that uncommon either. At some point, your job is coordinating and strategizing and communicating what needs to be done, and after a while, beyond meetings being an unfortunate nesesity, the meetings are the work

sombremesa 5y ago
That's all well and good, as long as people aren't expected to produce a month's worth of software from 40 hours of nothing but meetings. Unfortunately, they are. Largely due to inexperience and incompetence at the managerial level (zero technical chops once you go any level above IC). I'm well aware most software companies aren't like this, though. They'd go out of business, like this one will. Almost every key engineer (including CTO) has left this company already - six of them in the three months since I joined. One of them wrote a 10 page open letter to the CEO on the way out. Things are a real mess... Among other gems in that open letter was a link to this article [0]. [0] https://neilonsoftware.com/2020/09/08/non-technical-development-managers-are-like-head-chefs-who-cant-see-taste-or-smell/ https://neilonsoftware.com/2020/09/08/non-technical-developm...
zo1 5y ago
I think people forget that it's incredibly difficult to coordinate a group of people beyond a certain number. We're all walking, talking grey gooey blobs of personality, feelings, ambitions and stubbornness (even managers/leaders). To even attempt at mitigating and guiding such things to team or company-useful outcomes we have to have meetings. Sometimes lots of them. It's the unfortunate nature of such a dynamic and chaotic system.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Anything over 100 seems to get tough. Federate your business today.
  - lanstin 5y ago
    And design the software to enable uncoordinated effort to make progress. It isn’t trivial to do this, and does take some ability to think deeply, but it isn’t rocket science. The speed of software development is proportional to how little I have to think about. If i care about fifty files to add one feature, then the productivity plummets. It I can just edit file small sensible file, and release it pretty quickly, then I can go so fast. And software development speed pays compound interest (tech debt eats interest compoundedly?)

sombremesa 5y ago

That's all well and good, as long as people aren't expected to produce a month's worth of software from 40 hours of nothing but meetings. Unfortunately, they are. Largely due to inexperience and incompetence at the managerial level (zero technical chops once you go any level above IC). I'm well aware most software companies aren't like this, though. They'd go out of business, like this one will. Almost every key engineer (including CTO) has left this company already - six of them in the three months since I joined. One of them wrote a 10 page open letter to the CEO on the way out. Things are a real mess... Among other gems in that open letter was a link to this article [0]. [0] https://neilonsoftware.com/2020/09/08/non-technical-development-managers-are-like-head-chefs-who-cant-see-taste-or-smell/ https://neilonsoftware.com/2020/09/08/non-technical-developm...

zo1 5y ago

I think people forget that it's incredibly difficult to coordinate a group of people beyond a certain number. We're all walking, talking grey gooey blobs of personality, feelings, ambitions and stubbornness (even managers/leaders). To even attempt at mitigating and guiding such things to team or company-useful outcomes we have to have meetings. Sometimes lots of them. It's the unfortunate nature of such a dynamic and chaotic system.

atatatat 5y ago
Anything over 100 seems to get tough. Federate your business today.
- lanstin 5y ago
  And design the software to enable uncoordinated effort to make progress. It isn’t trivial to do this, and does take some ability to think deeply, but it isn’t rocket science. The speed of software development is proportional to how little I have to think about. If i care about fifty files to add one feature, then the productivity plummets. It I can just edit file small sensible file, and release it pretty quickly, then I can go so fast. And software development speed pays compound interest (tech debt eats interest compoundedly?)