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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 p

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.

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.