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The solution is simple enough that even the people researching such topics should understand - let people focus on getting things done instead of holding them i

The solution is simple enough that even the people researching such topics should understand - let people focus on getting things done instead of holding them in meetings all.day.long.

nine_zeros 3y ago
BUT THEN WHAT WILL MANAGERS DO?
- gumballindie 3y ago
  Apparently they will prompt ais or something.
- sublinear 3y ago
  What good managers do is bother to actually read the group chats and give a fuck about the details. Re-read what they don't understand until they do and only then reach out with a short and scheduled meeting and maybe just a few DMs. Then they get to work coordinating the effort for the next sprint and make sure everyone is on schedule. Far too many managers these days are just kicking back and checking boxes or dictating absurdly oversimplified plans from afar. A good manager becomes a student and servant of their own team. Anyone who doesn't want to do this needs to find another place to work. Just because we work from home doesn't mean we don't work.
  - aantix 3y ago
    Do you feel this is something that could be automated with a good AI scheduling agent? GPT seems to have a good sense when something is ambiguous. I bet it could also be made to make future projections mapped to dates. Feels like this may be an AI agent in the near future.. P.S. Startup idea?
    - sublinear 3y ago
      You're probably not wrong, but a 99% sensible plan can still be catastrophically bad. The complex knot of decisions to be made in the 1% may completely invalidate whatever the AI already told the higher-ups. This happens even now when humans painstakingly plan something out (usually because someone is abusing their "soft skills" to buy time or keep others from worrying). I think humans are still miles ahead in being able to spot a lie that will derail a project. If you force people to work under an equally incompetent AI middle manager, prepare to see them quit in a mass exodus for somewhere that doesn't. Nobody (except naive college grads) is going to risk getting fired or having their career ruined by an over-glorified cost-cutting measure that prioritizes the convenience of the rest of the business over the quality of the work being done.
- ebiester 3y ago
  Everything nobody else has the time to do, like they do now.
tene80i 3y ago
When I see things like this I do wonder: what are the meetings that people are in that they wish they weren't? Are there many meetings you are in that you can provide no value to, and from which you gain no value? What are they, and does no-one listen to you saying you shouldn't be there? Genuinely curious about examples, or whether it's managers not listening to you or something – not trying to undermine your point.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  In organisations where meetings are abundant the causes are sometimes systemic. Poor communication, superficial employees that instead of trying to understand rely on others to explain, poor planning, a desire to show productivity by those that would otherwise serve little to no purpose, misunderstood agile processes, poor requirements gathering, and the list goes. In some organisations the use of meetings is so ridiculous that day two after a ceo sends an email corporate wide asking for a reduction in meetings, meetings are organised to discuss how to reduce meetings and as a result there are meetings to follow up on meetings where reducing meetings has been discussed. Sometimes I wonder if people that cause meetings arent the people we keep reading about that have no inner voice and simply need to talk to someone, anyone, to compensate.
- gfody 3y ago
  I see this a lot and the real problem is that when engineers are complaining that they're in meetings all day what they mean is that it feels like they're in meetings all day, and the managers (who are actually in meetings all day) don't appreciate how one hour-long distraction can destroy a day's worth of productivity for an engineer. the worst meetings aren't the ones where you don't need to be there since you could just skip or join mute and keep working, the worst meetings are where detailed status updates are requested from you and you have to report on what you've completed and why it took longer than expected (as usual per hofstadter's law) which will have required you to page all that context back in displacing your current focus and due to the nature of the meeting frustrates you enough that recovering focus afterwards is difficult. status meetings were called out as an engineering management antipattern 40 years ago yet they remain utterly rampant.

The solution is simple enough that even the people researching such topics should understand - let people focus on getting things done instead of holding them in meetings all.day.long.

nine_zeros 3y ago

BUT THEN WHAT WILL MANAGERS DO?

gumballindie 3y ago
Apparently they will prompt ais or something.
sublinear 3y ago
What good managers do is bother to actually read the group chats and give a fuck about the details. Re-read what they don't understand until they do and only then reach out with a short and scheduled meeting and maybe just a few DMs. Then they get to work coordinating the effort for the next sprint and make sure everyone is on schedule. Far too many managers these days are just kicking back and checking boxes or dictating absurdly oversimplified plans from afar. A good manager becomes a student and servant of their own team. Anyone who doesn't want to do this needs to find another place to work. Just because we work from home doesn't mean we don't work.
- aantix 3y ago
  Do you feel this is something that could be automated with a good AI scheduling agent? GPT seems to have a good sense when something is ambiguous. I bet it could also be made to make future projections mapped to dates. Feels like this may be an AI agent in the near future.. P.S. Startup idea?
  - sublinear 3y ago
    You're probably not wrong, but a 99% sensible plan can still be catastrophically bad. The complex knot of decisions to be made in the 1% may completely invalidate whatever the AI already told the higher-ups. This happens even now when humans painstakingly plan something out (usually because someone is abusing their "soft skills" to buy time or keep others from worrying). I think humans are still miles ahead in being able to spot a lie that will derail a project. If you force people to work under an equally incompetent AI middle manager, prepare to see them quit in a mass exodus for somewhere that doesn't. Nobody (except naive college grads) is going to risk getting fired or having their career ruined by an over-glorified cost-cutting measure that prioritizes the convenience of the rest of the business over the quality of the work being done.
ebiester 3y ago
Everything nobody else has the time to do, like they do now.

tene80i 3y ago

When I see things like this I do wonder: what are the meetings that people are in that they wish they weren't? Are there many meetings you are in that you can provide no value to, and from which you gain no value? What are they, and does no-one listen to you saying you shouldn't be there? Genuinely curious about examples, or whether it's managers not listening to you or something – not trying to undermine your point.

gumballindie 3y ago
In organisations where meetings are abundant the causes are sometimes systemic. Poor communication, superficial employees that instead of trying to understand rely on others to explain, poor planning, a desire to show productivity by those that would otherwise serve little to no purpose, misunderstood agile processes, poor requirements gathering, and the list goes. In some organisations the use of meetings is so ridiculous that day two after a ceo sends an email corporate wide asking for a reduction in meetings, meetings are organised to discuss how to reduce meetings and as a result there are meetings to follow up on meetings where reducing meetings has been discussed. Sometimes I wonder if people that cause meetings arent the people we keep reading about that have no inner voice and simply need to talk to someone, anyone, to compensate.
gfody 3y ago
I see this a lot and the real problem is that when engineers are complaining that they're in meetings all day what they mean is that it feels like they're in meetings all day, and the managers (who are actually in meetings all day) don't appreciate how one hour-long distraction can destroy a day's worth of productivity for an engineer. the worst meetings aren't the ones where you don't need to be there since you could just skip or join mute and keep working, the worst meetings are where detailed status updates are requested from you and you have to report on what you've completed and why it took longer than expected (as usual per hofstadter's law) which will have required you to page all that context back in displacing your current focus and due to the nature of the meeting frustrates you enough that recovering focus afterwards is difficult. status meetings were called out as an engineering management antipattern 40 years ago yet they remain utterly rampant.