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I would argue most meetings can be mostly replaced with ticket comments, documentation, emails, and chats. Devs are constantly expected to adapt and learn new t

I would argue most meetings can be mostly replaced with ticket comments, documentation, emails, and chats. Devs are constantly expected to adapt and learn new things, while others apparently don't need to learn to use comments, documentation, emails, and chats to stay informed. Learning to use search features should be a good step as well. Outlook has search, Azure DevOps has search, there's Google, and most chat programs have search as well. Some developers need to learn to use these too. You don't have to be a wizard at search engine flags or features or anything - it just needs to be the first thing you do to avoid shallow, easy-to-answer questions.

koolba 4y ago
> I would argue most meetings can be mostly replaced with ticket comments, documentation, emails, and chats. s/would/should/ The real benefit of those forms of communication is that you have a written, hopefully searchable, record of the discussion. It also forces people to mold their incoherent thoughts into complete sentences. Meetings should be reserved for brainstorming and decision making.
UncleMeat 4y ago
My experience is the following: Many meetings can indeed be emails. Developers tend to be only so-so at identifying which meetings these actually are. And developers are terrible at identifying which two week long email threads could have been a short meeting. It isn't enough to say "there are too many meetings" and be done with it. You need to identify which meetings can be removed - and that can be tricky.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  Yes! My reply to "this meeting could have been an E-mail" is often: "OK, do you read your E-mail and respond promptly?" I love killing productivity-draining meetings and turning them asynchronous --BUT-- these meetings often get called because a decision needs to be made synchronously(now), and the decision makers can't wait two weeks while you get around to reading your E-mail and remembering to answer. Those meetings that are simply "status story time" where someone reads a doc to the room? Yea, they should be removed. I don't think anyone likes them.

koolba 4y ago

> I would argue most meetings can be mostly replaced with ticket comments, documentation, emails, and chats. s/would/should/ The real benefit of those forms of communication is that you have a written, hopefully searchable, record of the discussion. It also forces people to mold their incoherent thoughts into complete sentences. Meetings should be reserved for brainstorming and decision making.

UncleMeat 4y ago

My experience is the following: Many meetings can indeed be emails. Developers tend to be only so-so at identifying which meetings these actually are. And developers are terrible at identifying which two week long email threads could have been a short meeting. It isn't enough to say "there are too many meetings" and be done with it. You need to identify which meetings can be removed - and that can be tricky.

ryandrake 4y ago
Yes! My reply to "this meeting could have been an E-mail" is often: "OK, do you read your E-mail and respond promptly?" I love killing productivity-draining meetings and turning them asynchronous --BUT-- these meetings often get called because a decision needs to be made synchronously(now), and the decision makers can't wait two weeks while you get around to reading your E-mail and remembering to answer. Those meetings that are simply "status story time" where someone reads a doc to the room? Yea, they should be removed. I don't think anyone likes them.