4 ms·

I think a lot of this is just personality driven. I don't find meetings to be a way to get focused or a way to "kick off the day"; indeed, I always need a break

I think a lot of this is just personality driven. I don't find meetings to be a way to get focused or a way to "kick off the day"; indeed, I always need a break afterward. Yes, this applies to a good 10-15 minute standup. And I don't really know what people mean when they say things like "line up the help you need". Why would I wait until a meeting the next morning to reach out to relevant people for help? However, I recognize that lots of people don't feel the way I feel about any of this.

lmm 4y ago
> Why would I wait until a meeting the next morning to reach out to relevant people for help? It's hard to notice you're stuck when you're stuck. For a lot of programming problems putting your head down and ploughing through is the right approach - but you do need to come up for air occasionally. And if you need help then it can be hard to ask without feeling like you're interrupting someone else's work, so having a regular point where everyone's already not going to be in the middle of deep work is useful.
- sanderjd 4y ago
  Again, I recognize that this is a "to each their own" situation, but I don't relate to this at all. I know when I'm stuck and I know who to ask (or who to ask who I should ask) and I have good asynchronous communication tools where I can ask people things without immediately interrupting them.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    A lot of people believe they know the optimal time to reach out. But with my manager hat on, it's also true that a lot of people wait well beyond what's optimal for the organization. Things that can get in the way include pride, anxiety, laziness, a tendency to procrastinate, underestimating the resources available, and overestimating the cost of interruption, and underestimating the cost of delay. Maybe you are the rare sort of person who is perfectly calibrated. But if so, know that it's rare.
    - sanderjd 4y ago
      No, I'm not that rare sort of person. But it also isn't in the organization's best interest to force everyone into a single style of work, rather than supporting people in their own preferred style of work. That's why management is hard! If it were as easy as "having a status update meeting every morning is the optimal process for everyone", we could pay managers a lot less :)
      - wpietri 4y ago
        I think there's conflict between "own preferred style of work" and what's effective for a given team. If there's a team of people who are, say, doing fine communicating only via pull request, then I wouldn't mess with them. But if somebody of those habits wanted to join a team that was into pairing and a faster release cycle, then I would suggest that new person look elsewhere. So although I don't think it's in the best interests for a large org to force everybody to work similarly, I do think it's in an org's interests to support teams finding an effective joint work style, even if that means a given individual might not find it optimum or might even have to find something else to do.
wpietri 4y ago
For what it's worth, treating my social anxiety made a big difference for me in this. A bad meeting is still draining, but good ones can be positive and energizing. > Why would I wait until a meeting the next morning to reach out to relevant people for help? Having a specific time for it makes it easier for people to do. It normalizes it, so it lowers the bar to ask for help. Also, note that this comes after a discussion of what people are working on for the day. So it's natural to say "Looks like I'll be getting into the foobar system today; who worked on that most recently?" And it's also natural for people offer help without being asked, so that lowers the help bar futher.
- sanderjd 4y ago
  See, I used to think like this, that I have social anxiety. But as I've grown older and participated in more kinds of social situations over the years, I've learned that I don't, actually, have social anxiety problems; I love socializing, I think even more than average (the pandemic social starvation taught me this lesson). What I have is a personality, which means that I have a set of preferences for my interactions, just like everyone else. It's fine that some people prefer group meetings, and it's fine that I prefer documents, chats, and 1:1s. We're just different people with different personalities. What I don't like is the group-meeting-preferrers seeming to believe that their preference is normal and my preference is aberrant. I find that condescending. I'm happy to accommodate other peoples' preferences, but I don't need to change my own preferences to align with theirs in order to do so. > Having a specific time for it makes it easier for people to do. Again, I don't relate to this. I agree with you that it makes it easier for some people to do, but I'm not in that group of people. My point in this thread is that people are different. > So it's natural to say "Looks like I'll be getting into the foobar system today; who worked on that most recently?" It is much more natural for me to say "`git log`, what have people been up to in this system recently?". I prefer to read text than listen to verbal explanation. I also don't usually want to be offered help without being asked, I just want to go read and work. Again, I'm not at all saying this is the one true way, but please believe me that I just have different preferences that make status meetings less interesting to me (and I think a lot of other people) than they seem to be to you (and many others).

lmm 4y ago

> Why would I wait until a meeting the next morning to reach out to relevant people for help? It's hard to notice you're stuck when you're stuck. For a lot of programming problems putting your head down and ploughing through is the right approach - but you do need to come up for air occasionally. And if you need help then it can be hard to ask without feeling like you're interrupting someone else's work, so having a regular point where everyone's already not going to be in the middle of deep work is useful.

sanderjd 4y ago
Again, I recognize that this is a "to each their own" situation, but I don't relate to this at all. I know when I'm stuck and I know who to ask (or who to ask who I should ask) and I have good asynchronous communication tools where I can ask people things without immediately interrupting them.
- wpietri 4y ago
  A lot of people believe they know the optimal time to reach out. But with my manager hat on, it's also true that a lot of people wait well beyond what's optimal for the organization. Things that can get in the way include pride, anxiety, laziness, a tendency to procrastinate, underestimating the resources available, and overestimating the cost of interruption, and underestimating the cost of delay. Maybe you are the rare sort of person who is perfectly calibrated. But if so, know that it's rare.
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    No, I'm not that rare sort of person. But it also isn't in the organization's best interest to force everyone into a single style of work, rather than supporting people in their own preferred style of work. That's why management is hard! If it were as easy as "having a status update meeting every morning is the optimal process for everyone", we could pay managers a lot less :)
    - wpietri 4y ago
      I think there's conflict between "own preferred style of work" and what's effective for a given team. If there's a team of people who are, say, doing fine communicating only via pull request, then I wouldn't mess with them. But if somebody of those habits wanted to join a team that was into pairing and a faster release cycle, then I would suggest that new person look elsewhere. So although I don't think it's in the best interests for a large org to force everybody to work similarly, I do think it's in an org's interests to support teams finding an effective joint work style, even if that means a given individual might not find it optimum or might even have to find something else to do.

wpietri 4y ago

For what it's worth, treating my social anxiety made a big difference for me in this. A bad meeting is still draining, but good ones can be positive and energizing. > Why would I wait until a meeting the next morning to reach out to relevant people for help? Having a specific time for it makes it easier for people to do. It normalizes it, so it lowers the bar to ask for help. Also, note that this comes after a discussion of what people are working on for the day. So it's natural to say "Looks like I'll be getting into the foobar system today; who worked on that most recently?" And it's also natural for people offer help without being asked, so that lowers the help bar futher.

sanderjd 4y ago
See, I used to think like this, that I have social anxiety. But as I've grown older and participated in more kinds of social situations over the years, I've learned that I don't, actually, have social anxiety problems; I love socializing, I think even more than average (the pandemic social starvation taught me this lesson). What I have is a personality, which means that I have a set of preferences for my interactions, just like everyone else. It's fine that some people prefer group meetings, and it's fine that I prefer documents, chats, and 1:1s. We're just different people with different personalities. What I don't like is the group-meeting-preferrers seeming to believe that their preference is normal and my preference is aberrant. I find that condescending. I'm happy to accommodate other peoples' preferences, but I don't need to change my own preferences to align with theirs in order to do so. > Having a specific time for it makes it easier for people to do. Again, I don't relate to this. I agree with you that it makes it easier for some people to do, but I'm not in that group of people. My point in this thread is that people are different. > So it's natural to say "Looks like I'll be getting into the foobar system today; who worked on that most recently?" It is much more natural for me to say "`git log`, what have people been up to in this system recently?". I prefer to read text than listen to verbal explanation. I also don't usually want to be offered help without being asked, I just want to go read and work. Again, I'm not at all saying this is the one true way, but please believe me that I just have different preferences that make status meetings less interesting to me (and I think a lot of other people) than they seem to be to you (and many others).