8 ms·

Why record every meeting? Are you actually going to listen back to it? Waste of time and energy to me.

esafak 3y ago
It settles debates about what was discussed, informs people that did not attend, increases discoverability, and promotes transparency. Especially useful in interactions with customers. It's not for your daily stand-up. To quote the inimitable "Yes, Minister" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85fx0LrSMsE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85fx0LrSMsE): It is characteristic of all committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection of them and that every member's recollection of them differs violently from every other member's recollection. Consequently we accept the convention that the official decisions are those and only those which have officially recorded in the minutes by the officials, from which it emerges with an elegant inevitability that any decision which has been officially reached will have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials and any decision which is not recorded in the minutes has not been officially reached even if one or more members believe they can recollect it, so in this particular case if the decision had been officially reached it would have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials. And it isn't so it wasn't.
- appplication 3y ago
  So there was a laugh track behind that but honestly it seems more like good policy than comedy. If a little blunt.
  - pbronez 3y ago
    Yes Minister is fantastic. I recommend the book all the time. It’s satire, but the exaggeration helps you understand real organizational dynamics. Hmm I’m probably due for a re-read…
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > It settles debates about what was discussed, informs people that did not attend, increases discoverability, and promotes transparency. Especially useful in interactions with customers. Oh, so we're talking about “recording” as in writing down a record? Not “recording” as in “audio recording” of the meeting. Then I agree with that. Edit: it looks like bcantrill was actually talking about audio recording [1], and then I'm much more skeptical. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37972900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37972900
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- steveBK123 3y ago
  In my professional ~20 year experience, throwing evidence in higher powers face that they changed their mind.. is not going to score you any points & give you a win. Well guys you decided this at the meeting 6 months ago, that's why you aren't getting the feature you just imagined in your dream last week. Guess what, it generally doesn't matter. Stakeholders want what they want, business, customers and requirements evolve. Having "receipts" or thinking that throwing them in peoples face is somehow going to win you arguments is naive.
  - infogulch 3y ago
    Having receipts is the difference between "oh I guess I didn't request that 6 months ago. but I want it now, so how much will the change order cost?" and "you're lying and trying to rip me off, you'll be hearing from my lawyers next".
bcantrill 3y ago
This probably merits a long piece at some point, but recording every meeting has been transformative for us: it's zero time and energy (you just need someone to hit the record button!) and it gives engineers the freedom to not be in a meeting for fear of what will be done in their absence (a surprisingly common motive for attending a meeting!). As for going back through meetings: yes, we definitely do (for a variety of reasons), though the distribution is lumpy (and most meetings are likely never listened to again).
- laserlight 3y ago
  > it gives engineers the freedom to not be in a meeting for fear of what will be done in their absence Recording the meeting won't prevent what will be done in engineers' absence, will it? Do you mean that engineers have peace of mind that they could listen to the recording and learn about everything discussed in the meeting?
- netjiro 3y ago
  Recordings are a great utility: Having a record allows all kinds of automated followup, post analysis, etc. This level of business intelligence and actual understanding is helpful in improving organisation function and individual training long term. Asynchronous is _a_ great next step beyond that: Moving discussions and decisions async has been a massive improvement in the organisations I have helped. Goes against dogma and habit (with all the huge obstacles that come with it) but pays off quickly. Discussions are more factual and evidence based. Decisions are thought through and transparent. Collective (and individual) memory of what has been discussed, decided, and why is much better. Training people to be clear, succinct, transparent also help them not get bogged down in gut feeling, habit, dogma, ego, posturing, pestering, politics, etc. And of course the immediate bonus of individually flexible scheduling and not killing efficiency by slicing everything to administration/manager-mode-time.
px1999 3y ago
Manually, probably not (exceptional circumstances aside). Recording generally means transcription and the ability to do automatic summarisation and to query action items, which _are_ useful Also it means folks can be away or if someone didn't quite catch/understand something relevant to them they might want to rewatch some of the meeting.
PoignardAzur 3y ago
As someone who recently joined a company that recorded every meeting it did since its creation: yup, this is immensely valuable. Having access to past meetings is super useful for onboarding. You can get a picture of what everyone is working on super quickly.
- synergy20 3y ago
  totally agree
- LtWorf 3y ago
  You also think that learning via youtube tutorials is quick?
  - PoignardAzur 3y ago
    I'll take the bait: no, but I think watching a livestream or a video of someone using the tool you need can be better and quicker than a tutorial, text or video. Documentation is good, but it only gives you what the author wanted to show you. Recordings give you what they cared about, which questions they've considered and which questions they already see as settled, what problems they need help with, etc. (But the video format isn't ideal. I'm looking into using Whisper on the meeting archive.)
adonese 3y ago
Meeting minutes has been my go-to strategy in the past startups I worked at. We share them on notion, participants can edit / add, while it is also visible to other members to view. Just one notion page with subpage for different meetings. I believe the idea for the meetings are mostly to plan for something or align the team due to changes in requirements or divergence in execution and as such they should rather discuss limited topic(s). That's why I feel meetings minutes are suffice to reach good consensus
monkeydust 3y ago
Transcribe and summarize using an llm.
- synergy20 3y ago
  teams can do transcribe well already for me
ericjohannsen 3y ago
It makes the information discoverable to people who weren't there that day, to people who will be hired in the future, and to LLMs you may want to train to make all relevant information in the company discoverable. Having said that, some meetings don't meet these criteria. 1:1 meetings don't for sure, nor do calls centered on conflict resolution.

It settles debates about what was discussed, informs people that did not attend, increases discoverability, and promotes transparency. Especially useful in interactions with customers. It's not for your daily stand-up. To quote the inimitable "Yes, Minister" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85fx0LrSMsE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85fx0LrSMsE): It is characteristic of all committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection of them and that every member's recollection of them differs violently from every other member's recollection. Consequently we accept the convention that the official decisions are those and only those which have officially recorded in the minutes by the officials, from which it emerges with an elegant inevitability that any decision which has been officially reached will have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials and any decision which is not recorded in the minutes has not been officially reached even if one or more members believe they can recollect it, so in this particular case if the decision had been officially reached it would have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials. And it isn't so it wasn't.

appplication 3y ago
So there was a laugh track behind that but honestly it seems more like good policy than comedy. If a little blunt.
- pbronez 3y ago
  Yes Minister is fantastic. I recommend the book all the time. It’s satire, but the exaggeration helps you understand real organizational dynamics. Hmm I’m probably due for a re-read…
littlestymaar 3y ago
> It settles debates about what was discussed, informs people that did not attend, increases discoverability, and promotes transparency. Especially useful in interactions with customers. Oh, so we're talking about “recording” as in writing down a record? Not “recording” as in “audio recording” of the meeting. Then I agree with that. Edit: it looks like bcantrill was actually talking about audio recording [1], and then I'm much more skeptical. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37972900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37972900
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
steveBK123 3y ago
In my professional ~20 year experience, throwing evidence in higher powers face that they changed their mind.. is not going to score you any points & give you a win. Well guys you decided this at the meeting 6 months ago, that's why you aren't getting the feature you just imagined in your dream last week. Guess what, it generally doesn't matter. Stakeholders want what they want, business, customers and requirements evolve. Having "receipts" or thinking that throwing them in peoples face is somehow going to win you arguments is naive.
- infogulch 3y ago
  Having receipts is the difference between "oh I guess I didn't request that 6 months ago. but I want it now, so how much will the change order cost?" and "you're lying and trying to rip me off, you'll be hearing from my lawyers next".

bcantrill 3y ago

This probably merits a long piece at some point, but recording every meeting has been transformative for us: it's zero time and energy (you just need someone to hit the record button!) and it gives engineers the freedom to not be in a meeting for fear of what will be done in their absence (a surprisingly common motive for attending a meeting!). As for going back through meetings: yes, we definitely do (for a variety of reasons), though the distribution is lumpy (and most meetings are likely never listened to again).

laserlight 3y ago
> it gives engineers the freedom to not be in a meeting for fear of what will be done in their absence Recording the meeting won't prevent what will be done in engineers' absence, will it? Do you mean that engineers have peace of mind that they could listen to the recording and learn about everything discussed in the meeting?
netjiro 3y ago
Recordings are a great utility: Having a record allows all kinds of automated followup, post analysis, etc. This level of business intelligence and actual understanding is helpful in improving organisation function and individual training long term. Asynchronous is _a_ great next step beyond that: Moving discussions and decisions async has been a massive improvement in the organisations I have helped. Goes against dogma and habit (with all the huge obstacles that come with it) but pays off quickly. Discussions are more factual and evidence based. Decisions are thought through and transparent. Collective (and individual) memory of what has been discussed, decided, and why is much better. Training people to be clear, succinct, transparent also help them not get bogged down in gut feeling, habit, dogma, ego, posturing, pestering, politics, etc. And of course the immediate bonus of individually flexible scheduling and not killing efficiency by slicing everything to administration/manager-mode-time.

px1999 3y ago

Manually, probably not (exceptional circumstances aside). Recording generally means transcription and the ability to do automatic summarisation and to query action items, which _are_ useful Also it means folks can be away or if someone didn't quite catch/understand something relevant to them they might want to rewatch some of the meeting.

PoignardAzur 3y ago

As someone who recently joined a company that recorded every meeting it did since its creation: yup, this is immensely valuable. Having access to past meetings is super useful for onboarding. You can get a picture of what everyone is working on super quickly.

synergy20 3y ago
totally agree
LtWorf 3y ago
You also think that learning via youtube tutorials is quick?
- PoignardAzur 3y ago
  I'll take the bait: no, but I think watching a livestream or a video of someone using the tool you need can be better and quicker than a tutorial, text or video. Documentation is good, but it only gives you what the author wanted to show you. Recordings give you what they cared about, which questions they've considered and which questions they already see as settled, what problems they need help with, etc. (But the video format isn't ideal. I'm looking into using Whisper on the meeting archive.)

adonese 3y ago

Meeting minutes has been my go-to strategy in the past startups I worked at. We share them on notion, participants can edit / add, while it is also visible to other members to view. Just one notion page with subpage for different meetings. I believe the idea for the meetings are mostly to plan for something or align the team due to changes in requirements or divergence in execution and as such they should rather discuss limited topic(s). That's why I feel meetings minutes are suffice to reach good consensus

monkeydust 3y ago

Transcribe and summarize using an llm.

synergy20 3y ago
teams can do transcribe well already for me

ericjohannsen 3y ago

It makes the information discoverable to people who weren't there that day, to people who will be hired in the future, and to LLMs you may want to train to make all relevant information in the company discoverable. Having said that, some meetings don't meet these criteria. 1:1 meetings don't for sure, nor do calls centered on conflict resolution.