6 ms·

> I remember the engineers on my team from HQ explaining to me that my proposed stand-up meeting schedule wouldn't work beacuse their intramural basketball lea

> I remember the engineers on my team from HQ explaining to me that my proposed stand-up meeting schedule wouldn't work beacuse their intramural basketball league scheduled their games for that time. Meanwhile, in our low-perqs atmosphere in NY, distractions were limited and productivity was high. We also all made money. Your standup meeting could've been an email. Their immovable basketball game (quality of life) is far more important than a meeting that can happen at any time - and probably doesn't even need to exist in the first place. Other than that, your points stand.

bobobob420 4y ago
This is exactly the mindset of failure. The team standup has 10x more priority than some dumb basketball league
- jackblemming 4y ago
  Show me the studies on the effectiveness of a daily 10 min standup and I’d be happy to listen. Otherwise I’d be happy to make up some other rituals that sound good on paper and then rationalize them with buzzwords.
  - bobobob420 4y ago
    - 8note 4y ago
      The only particularly useful standup I've been in is when our VP was joining to see if we needed any quick escalations each day for about a week Everything else is fun for memorizing what everyone's doing so I can respond immediately to random questions, but the value is questionable. Everyone else on my team would be better off if I didn't know everything off hand, and instead relied on the proper sources of truth
  - lovich 4y ago
    Speaking as a manager who at least _thinks_ I run stand ups well, I have them run for 5-10 minutes max for 5 people and treat them as an update so that I can run interference on any “status updates” other parts of the company demand across a day, and as the time for the team to tell me what problems I need to go fix for the team to be productive. I usually leave a standup with a list of 1-3 people I need to go talk to, to either move the code through bureaucratic processes, or an actual decision to make on which projects we’ll take on based on information found while engineering. That said I also don’t care if my people say they have nothing of note and skip the meeting
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  Agree to disagree. A team standup has close to no value. Having a high quality of life has a lot of value (including increased work productivity). As the California Milk Campaign went - happy cows make quality cheese, and happy workers make quality work... Again - one can be moved, the other cannot.
  - metabagel 4y ago
    It has value to a single person - the person running the meeting. Everyone else zones out until it's their time to speak.
    - presentation 4y ago
      That’s why I just do 3-5 min syncs 3-4 times a week one on one with my direct reports with flex to lengthen if a deeper topic comes up. Uses more of my time but less zoning out and more chance to actually unblock blockers. Downside is I need to tell people to communicate if there is value in team collaboration, but we have other opportunities for fostering that.
  - hbrn 4y ago
    Getting a bunch of introverts to talk to each other every day can have tremendous value for the company. But in most companies standups are just agile cargo cult. Nobody knows why they are doing standups, so naturally they turn into "I publicly report to my manager and pretend I work really hard, because everybody else is doing that". People forgot (or never realized?) that standups are not for the manager, they are for the team.
  - lmeyerov 4y ago
    If team happiness comes from basketball, that's (probably) not the team driving revenue. I've mostly only seen that tied to results in professional basketball teams. (Not to hate on balls: it was great playing volleyball in grad school. After 5pm. A couple of $B companies came out of that group.)
- paganel 4y ago
  As it happens the last The Office episode I saw a couple of months ago involved Michael Scott organizing a basketball match during work hours, even though corporate had just been complaining about low numbers from him and his team (if I remember right). Related to a comment further up the thread about fruits, a close friend of mine told me some time ago how one of his colleagues was complaining in the company chat about the kiwi fruits that were being given by the company as free perks having too much of that “hairy” stuff on them (I’m on my phone, too lazy to search for the exact English term), and how he preferred to be served “lean” and “shiny” kiwi fruits instead. Said friend works at the local subsidiary of a big US tech company of which everyone on this forum has heard about.
- isatty 4y ago
  A team building activity has 10x the priority than some standup. If you need a standup to get stuff done or to motivate people then you’ve already lost.
- winphone1974 4y ago
  Not for the participants apparently.
- jimbob45 4y ago
  I guess you and I are in the minority now because I absolutely agree. To me, the hypothetical was akin to skipping school to go hang out with your friends.
- 8note 4y ago
  High intensity physical activity keeps you in shape both physically and mentally. Standup everyday with people burnt out and depressed due to a lack of excercise and poor nutrition is a recipe for failure too.
  - D-Coder 4y ago
    "High intensity physical activity..." is exactly one of the things I DON'T want. Any programming position that wants me out of my chair for exercise... nope. I'll deal with exercise and nutrition on my own time, thank you very much.
    - horns4lyfe 4y ago
      No one’s talking about forcing a basketball game, but people here are acting like taking the time out of the blessed 8 hrs to play one of you want is sacrilegious.
naravara 4y ago
Of all the types of meetings that could be emails, stand-ups are at the very bottom of the list. A well run, efficient stand-up can head off a day's worth of productivity sucking emails and Slack messages with a 10 min conversation.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  I've been in MANY different standups. The vast majority of them are not well run. Standups are also (rarely) recorded, and therefore unsearchable. Have you ever thought - maybe an email process can also be done well? Maybe the majority of your email threads are terrible. That doesn't mean they have to be. Maybe you think all of your meetings are well run - it doesn't mean everyone else thinks they are...
  - naravara 4y ago
    I've been in many different companies and the majority of all processes are not well run. That just means things are being badly run, not that you shouldn't do the right things and run them well. And no, email processes cannot be well done. You may think your's are, but that doesn't mean everyone else does. If I had my druthers I would ban email for all in-house communication and do everything verbally, via chat apps, or workflow management tools. Anything that needs more thorough elaboration should be written down as a thoughtfully articulated memo. If you feel the need to record the contents of a 20 minute group conversation to search it later that probably means you need to focus and take better notes. I will say it is truly a wild claim to assert that an intramural basketball game is more conducive to team productivity than a stand-up meeting though.
    - winphone1974 4y ago
      You haven't convinced me there's a good substitute for email when it comes to threaded, easy, async, thoughtful communication. Your suggestions all fail one of these.
      - naravara 4y ago
llaolleh 4y ago
I would go to the office to play basketball with my team. I'd think that it'd build team chemistry and cross team collaboration.
- doliveira 4y ago
  Those are such buzzwords. I for one would hate to be forced to play basketball just for that.
afro88 4y ago
This seems crazy to me, but I don't work in FAANG. A basketball game (I'm assuming recurring) during work hours? Quality of life from inside work? Are you all at campus for most of your day (ie, longer than 8h?) To me, quality of life is working hard and smart during the 8h, and keeping the rest of the day for you and your family. Quality of life comes from outside work, and the company respects and encourages that boundary. Of course we still do team building activities, but these are occastional off sites. Or optional after work things (drinks, workouts, indoor football etc)
- jrockway 4y ago
  What studies show that 5 days x 8 hours is the optimal point for productivity? We picked those numbers based on tradition (and complaints from unions about the 7x12 schedule) well before software engineering was a career. Companies that do 5x6 or 4x8 seem to be doing fine.
  - CrimpCity 4y ago
    Studies looking at WW1 and WW2 show that 40 hours a week is optimal. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262809555_The_Productivity_Of_Working_Hours https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262809555_The_Produ... You can use scihub to get the paper or here's a secondary pop-sci source: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190912-what-wartime-munitionettes-can-teach-us-about-burnout https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190912-what-wartime-m...
- jedberg 4y ago
  Pre-pandemic, Google stopped serving breakfast at 8 and started dinner at 7. A lot of the younger folks were there for 11 hours every day so they could get all three meals. If you're there that long, you need to take breaks once in a while, which they of course provided plenty of options. They even had laundry machines on site so that you could do laundry between meetings.
  - bskap 4y ago
    Breakfast stopped at 10, not 8. Dinner started at 6, but most people didn't stay for it.

bobobob420 4y ago

This is exactly the mindset of failure. The team standup has 10x more priority than some dumb basketball league

jackblemming 4y ago
Show me the studies on the effectiveness of a daily 10 min standup and I’d be happy to listen. Otherwise I’d be happy to make up some other rituals that sound good on paper and then rationalize them with buzzwords.
- bobobob420 4y ago
  - 8note 4y ago
    The only particularly useful standup I've been in is when our VP was joining to see if we needed any quick escalations each day for about a week Everything else is fun for memorizing what everyone's doing so I can respond immediately to random questions, but the value is questionable. Everyone else on my team would be better off if I didn't know everything off hand, and instead relied on the proper sources of truth
- lovich 4y ago
  Speaking as a manager who at least _thinks_ I run stand ups well, I have them run for 5-10 minutes max for 5 people and treat them as an update so that I can run interference on any “status updates” other parts of the company demand across a day, and as the time for the team to tell me what problems I need to go fix for the team to be productive. I usually leave a standup with a list of 1-3 people I need to go talk to, to either move the code through bureaucratic processes, or an actual decision to make on which projects we’ll take on based on information found while engineering. That said I also don’t care if my people say they have nothing of note and skip the meeting
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
Agree to disagree. A team standup has close to no value. Having a high quality of life has a lot of value (including increased work productivity). As the California Milk Campaign went - happy cows make quality cheese, and happy workers make quality work... Again - one can be moved, the other cannot.
- metabagel 4y ago
  It has value to a single person - the person running the meeting. Everyone else zones out until it's their time to speak.
  - presentation 4y ago
    That’s why I just do 3-5 min syncs 3-4 times a week one on one with my direct reports with flex to lengthen if a deeper topic comes up. Uses more of my time but less zoning out and more chance to actually unblock blockers. Downside is I need to tell people to communicate if there is value in team collaboration, but we have other opportunities for fostering that.
- hbrn 4y ago
  Getting a bunch of introverts to talk to each other every day can have tremendous value for the company. But in most companies standups are just agile cargo cult. Nobody knows why they are doing standups, so naturally they turn into "I publicly report to my manager and pretend I work really hard, because everybody else is doing that". People forgot (or never realized?) that standups are not for the manager, they are for the team.
- lmeyerov 4y ago
  If team happiness comes from basketball, that's (probably) not the team driving revenue. I've mostly only seen that tied to results in professional basketball teams. (Not to hate on balls: it was great playing volleyball in grad school. After 5pm. A couple of $B companies came out of that group.)
paganel 4y ago
As it happens the last The Office episode I saw a couple of months ago involved Michael Scott organizing a basketball match during work hours, even though corporate had just been complaining about low numbers from him and his team (if I remember right). Related to a comment further up the thread about fruits, a close friend of mine told me some time ago how one of his colleagues was complaining in the company chat about the kiwi fruits that were being given by the company as free perks having too much of that “hairy” stuff on them (I’m on my phone, too lazy to search for the exact English term), and how he preferred to be served “lean” and “shiny” kiwi fruits instead. Said friend works at the local subsidiary of a big US tech company of which everyone on this forum has heard about.
isatty 4y ago
A team building activity has 10x the priority than some standup. If you need a standup to get stuff done or to motivate people then you’ve already lost.
winphone1974 4y ago
Not for the participants apparently.
jimbob45 4y ago
I guess you and I are in the minority now because I absolutely agree. To me, the hypothetical was akin to skipping school to go hang out with your friends.
8note 4y ago
High intensity physical activity keeps you in shape both physically and mentally. Standup everyday with people burnt out and depressed due to a lack of excercise and poor nutrition is a recipe for failure too.
- D-Coder 4y ago
  "High intensity physical activity..." is exactly one of the things I DON'T want. Any programming position that wants me out of my chair for exercise... nope. I'll deal with exercise and nutrition on my own time, thank you very much.
  - horns4lyfe 4y ago
    No one’s talking about forcing a basketball game, but people here are acting like taking the time out of the blessed 8 hrs to play one of you want is sacrilegious.

naravara 4y ago

Of all the types of meetings that could be emails, stand-ups are at the very bottom of the list. A well run, efficient stand-up can head off a day's worth of productivity sucking emails and Slack messages with a 10 min conversation.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
I've been in MANY different standups. The vast majority of them are not well run. Standups are also (rarely) recorded, and therefore unsearchable. Have you ever thought - maybe an email process can also be done well? Maybe the majority of your email threads are terrible. That doesn't mean they have to be. Maybe you think all of your meetings are well run - it doesn't mean everyone else thinks they are...
- naravara 4y ago
  I've been in many different companies and the majority of all processes are not well run. That just means things are being badly run, not that you shouldn't do the right things and run them well. And no, email processes cannot be well done. You may think your's are, but that doesn't mean everyone else does. If I had my druthers I would ban email for all in-house communication and do everything verbally, via chat apps, or workflow management tools. Anything that needs more thorough elaboration should be written down as a thoughtfully articulated memo. If you feel the need to record the contents of a 20 minute group conversation to search it later that probably means you need to focus and take better notes. I will say it is truly a wild claim to assert that an intramural basketball game is more conducive to team productivity than a stand-up meeting though.
  - winphone1974 4y ago
    You haven't convinced me there's a good substitute for email when it comes to threaded, easy, async, thoughtful communication. Your suggestions all fail one of these.
    - naravara 4y ago

llaolleh 4y ago

I would go to the office to play basketball with my team. I'd think that it'd build team chemistry and cross team collaboration.

doliveira 4y ago
Those are such buzzwords. I for one would hate to be forced to play basketball just for that.

afro88 4y ago

This seems crazy to me, but I don't work in FAANG. A basketball game (I'm assuming recurring) during work hours? Quality of life from inside work? Are you all at campus for most of your day (ie, longer than 8h?) To me, quality of life is working hard and smart during the 8h, and keeping the rest of the day for you and your family. Quality of life comes from outside work, and the company respects and encourages that boundary. Of course we still do team building activities, but these are occastional off sites. Or optional after work things (drinks, workouts, indoor football etc)

jrockway 4y ago
What studies show that 5 days x 8 hours is the optimal point for productivity? We picked those numbers based on tradition (and complaints from unions about the 7x12 schedule) well before software engineering was a career. Companies that do 5x6 or 4x8 seem to be doing fine.
- CrimpCity 4y ago
  Studies looking at WW1 and WW2 show that 40 hours a week is optimal. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262809555_The_Productivity_Of_Working_Hours https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262809555_The_Produ... You can use scihub to get the paper or here's a secondary pop-sci source: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190912-what-wartime-munitionettes-can-teach-us-about-burnout https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190912-what-wartime-m...
jedberg 4y ago
Pre-pandemic, Google stopped serving breakfast at 8 and started dinner at 7. A lot of the younger folks were there for 11 hours every day so they could get all three meals. If you're there that long, you need to take breaks once in a while, which they of course provided plenty of options. They even had laundry machines on site so that you could do laundry between meetings.
- bskap 4y ago
  Breakfast stopped at 10, not 8. Dinner started at 6, but most people didn't stay for it.