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For engineers/developers (or anyone producing the actual output), meetings are an imposition. This is true for the sort of engineers who have no input on what

For engineers/developers (or anyone producing the actual output), meetings are an imposition. This is true for the sort of engineers who have no input on what is being built. Once you get to the level where you're making architecture decisions you need meetings in order to discover what to build. My advice to any developer who dislikes meetings and sees them as an imposition is to find a way to appreciate them, or stay near the bottom of the food chain.

mbrodersen 5y ago
Nope not at all. I am a Senior Architect, working for a high tech company, and having a formal meeting is really rare. There is almost no middle management. Team leads are trusted, are hands on, and have the full responsibility to deliver. It works extremely well and we routinely outcompete companies 10 to 100 times our size.
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  Let me add that I strongly encourage our competitors to have lots of meetings. With a bit of luck our competitors will have so many meetings that they will be even easier to compete with. And I also highly recommend that our competitors add more layers of middle management. For the same reason.
nine_zeros 5y ago
I am not talking about discovery meetings set by engineers to discuss with other engineers. I fully realize no one is an island. The meetings I am talking about are daily stand-ups, presentation for management (why don't you make some slides that we can present to the VP), the random late meeting set by a Product Manager because they wasted too much time on "other commitments" and could only get back to this one now.
- coldacid 5y ago
  If your discovery meetings are just engineers talking to other engineers, you're doing discovery wrong. The people building the product are *not* the only stakeholders.
  - nine_zeros 5y ago
    I don't think you have been exposed to all kinds of software engineering.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
dragonwriter 5y ago
> For engineers/developers (or anyone producing the actual output), meetings are an imposition. > This is true for the sort of engineers who have no input on what is being built. It's true for everyone who isn't gratuitously satisfying a desire for social dominance displays. > Once you get to the level where you're making architecture decisions you need meetings in order to discover what to build. Some meetings are necessary, all meetings are impositions. If you are at the level where meetings are serving your individual needs and you are calling them, you need to be very cognizant that they are still impositions, and not just for engineers. And it's good to view even your own meetings as a kind of self-imposition to be optimized and minimized in your own interest, as well as those of the other people they are imposed on. > My advice to any developer who dislikes meetings and sees them as an imposition is to find a way to appreciate them, or stay near the bottom of the food chain. IME, people high up in the food chain tend to also view meetings as impositions, and people who don't view meetings that way tend to get negatively noticed for it from above, below, and laterally.

mbrodersen 5y ago

Nope not at all. I am a Senior Architect, working for a high tech company, and having a formal meeting is really rare. There is almost no middle management. Team leads are trusted, are hands on, and have the full responsibility to deliver. It works extremely well and we routinely outcompete companies 10 to 100 times our size.

mbrodersen 5y ago
Let me add that I strongly encourage our competitors to have lots of meetings. With a bit of luck our competitors will have so many meetings that they will be even easier to compete with. And I also highly recommend that our competitors add more layers of middle management. For the same reason.

nine_zeros 5y ago

I am not talking about discovery meetings set by engineers to discuss with other engineers. I fully realize no one is an island. The meetings I am talking about are daily stand-ups, presentation for management (why don't you make some slides that we can present to the VP), the random late meeting set by a Product Manager because they wasted too much time on "other commitments" and could only get back to this one now.

coldacid 5y ago
If your discovery meetings are just engineers talking to other engineers, you're doing discovery wrong. The people building the product are *not* the only stakeholders.
- nine_zeros 5y ago
  I don't think you have been exposed to all kinds of software engineering.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

dragonwriter 5y ago

> For engineers/developers (or anyone producing the actual output), meetings are an imposition. > This is true for the sort of engineers who have no input on what is being built. It's true for everyone who isn't gratuitously satisfying a desire for social dominance displays. > Once you get to the level where you're making architecture decisions you need meetings in order to discover what to build. Some meetings are necessary, all meetings are impositions. If you are at the level where meetings are serving your individual needs and you are calling them, you need to be very cognizant that they are still impositions, and not just for engineers. And it's good to view even your own meetings as a kind of self-imposition to be optimized and minimized in your own interest, as well as those of the other people they are imposed on. > My advice to any developer who dislikes meetings and sees them as an imposition is to find a way to appreciate them, or stay near the bottom of the food chain. IME, people high up in the food chain tend to also view meetings as impositions, and people who don't view meetings that way tend to get negatively noticed for it from above, below, and laterally.