5 ms·

During the pandemic, we had a natural experiment at my previous company. Our org had started an org wise auto ‘meeting starts 5 minute past’ while others had th

by tanvach 9mo ago

During the pandemic, we had a natural experiment at my previous company. Our org had started an org wise auto ‘meeting starts 5 minute past’ while others had the traditional meetings start on the hour. Also conveniently, we also had the calendar data for internal meetings, internal VC software (not zoom) db that logs the participants when they join and leave meetings and employee function db. I was serendipitously the lead DS for analyzing the effectiveness of the ‘starting 5 minutes past’. After joining and cleaning a lot of the data, the data showed: 1) at the start of the trial, meetings ended on time. Then after few weeks it slip to ending late, negating the usefulness. Other orgs did not see meetings running late. 2) ICs tend to stick around and over run meetings, while managers tend to leave meetings on time. 3) if I remember right, we had a survey data that showed pretty clearly that managers prefer the ‘starting 5 minutes past’ while ICs do not care or have negative sentiment. The biggest predictor for people who prefer starting late is how crowded their schedules are. Managers tend to have very crowded schedules which means they want a break between meetings, while ICs prefer not having to waste time waiting. In the end we reverted back to normal schedule. It was just easier for busy people to bounce early.

conductr 9mo ago
I’ve experienced this all before in similar ways. The metric for meetings ending on time isn’t even very useful because when it’s needed people will ask “do you have a hard stop?” or similarly agree to continue the meeting. Often because of all the points you made, it’s the IC that stick around to talk about finer points or specifics of what was decided or discussed. It’s best to do this while it’s fresh and between people that can “talk shop” at a granular level (whatever that means for your org/team). It’s actually a good thing your ICs want to collaborate or align separate from management. If you’re a manager and you could technically continue on the meeting, consider opting out to give them space as peers. I often ask “do you all need me to stay one?” and most often it’s a No. It all means that it’s basically 2 meetings occurring and it’s the scheduling calendar artifact that is faulty.
RedShift1 9mo ago
What are ICs?
- JustinAiken 9mo ago
  Individual Contributors - not managmenet
  - 7bit 9mo ago
    That almost sounds insulting. Like management is the only party with vision, drive and a goal and everybody else is just there to help. When often management just manages and true innovation really comes from people of all positions.
    - rgoulter 9mo ago
      Eh. It's a relatively common term. I wouldn't read too much into it. I'd rather not have by ass kissed with a term like "everyday innovator". -- "Individual Contributor" is fine.
      - ljf 9mo ago
        I like it - though we use SME- Subject Matter Expert. E.g. If you aren't an SME or a Manager, then why are you in the meeting? (SME encompasses PM and BA roles, as they too should be experts in their domain and ideally on the domain we are working on.)
        criley2 9mo ago
        SME and IC are functionally different. SME informs, IC creates. Often, IC aren't SME in the space they're developing in, because they're SME of the technology instead of the business.
        refulgentis 9mo ago
        This whole thing reminds me why I never wanna work for someone again. From what I saw at Google it all just ends up being classist top-down BS of who isn't allowed at the big kids table, or bottom-up BS by insisting they aren't the SME just the IC and we can't do anything until the XYZ PM SME TL and/or manager approve. It is unparsable Dilbert nonsense to anyone outside of specific scenarios. And it causes interminable discontent. Because what if the SME is the PM because they know business and tech but the SME is actually the IC because they know the tech and its tech but what if the manager is actually the SME because they're running the tech and may need to redelegate if the IC needs vacation, blah blah blah. (job history: college dropout waiter => my own startup, sold => Google for 8 years => my own startup)
steve1977 9mo ago
In my experience, the best approach is simply to have as few meetings as possible.
- onion2k 9mo ago
  People don't know what 'as few as possible' means though. It needs to be clearer than that. As a rule I encourage my reports to consider: - Does it even need to be a meeting? Keeping meetings to things that need 'a discussion or decision', and keeping updates and announcements to chat or email works fairly well. - Does the meeting give you any value, or do you bring value to it? If both are no they should decline it. - Is there an agenda with expected outcomes? No agenda and no goal means it should be declined. - Are you doing something that's a higher priority? Seeing one of my reports in a meeting when there's an active incident in progress gets me asking questions. - Does the person running the meeting share notes afterwards? One thing I've noticed over the last couple of decades is that people are much happier to skip a meeting if they'll still hear about what happens afterwards. People don't skip them if being in the meeting is the only way to know about what was discussed or decided. I always encourage people to write some notes and share them if they've set up a meeting now.
  - pixl97 9mo ago
    >much happier to skip a meeting if they'll still hear about what happens afterwards. If you're just a 'follower' of what's going on, that's fine. The problem shows up when you have some stakeholder or steering ability. If you miss meeting about X and don't bring up discussion about Y then other person A may not talk about Z that affects X. But I agree that every meeting should have a point and total number of meetings should be minimized.
bjackman 9mo ago
> The biggest predictor for people who prefer starting late is how crowded their schedules are. Managers tend to have very crowded schedules which means they want a break between meetings, while ICs prefer not having to waste time waiting. I have had a few senior managers (at Google) who ask for all the meetings _they_ attend to start 5 minutes late. This seems 100% reasonable to me. No need for it to be an org policy. Just a affordance for the people who spend 95% of their working hours in meetings. I've also had several senior managers at Google who _don't_ do this, but are 5 minutes late for every meeting anyway. This alternative is pretty annoying!
- JamesSwift 9mo ago
  Or they can just drop off 5 minutes before their next meeting and avoid having everyone else adapt to their preferred start time?? Even better is they only need to use that method when meetings actually run full time rather than every single meeting they are in
  - crazygringo 9mo ago
    The problem is that final decisions tend to be made in the last 30 seconds of a meeting. If you're a manager with a stake in the outcome, you can't leave the meeting until you've ensured that the outcome works for you. Leaving 5 min early is often simply not an option. While arriving 5 minutes late is. It's not an ego thing -- it's the fact that meeting leaders often let meetings run long.
earino 9mo ago
What joy to bump into you in the comments section! I definitely preferred 5 minutes past, but my calendar was pretty awful. What was really awful, however, was when your calendar was a random mishmash of starts at :00, :05, :30 and :35 :-)
- tanvach 9mo ago
  Indeed :) Ah yes I agree! That was awful to everyone (and to analyze!).
potato3732842 9mo ago
>ICs tend to stick around and over run meetings, while managers tend to leave meetings on time. That makes 200% sense. A couple or more ICs tend to want to stick around to go off topic or drill down on some thing if they don't have a conflict. People who aren't expressly relevant to that or have a conflict drop at that time. You're basically seeing the post-meeting hall conversation of the ICs in your data.
- carlmr 9mo ago
  Additionally, most meetings are worthless drivel from an IC perspective. The off-topic/drilldown is usually when ICs actually discuss topics relevant to them and get into a level of detail on issues that actually helps further the project.
- phantom784 9mo ago
  Not to mention that managers are way more likely to have back-to-back meetings.
nephihaha 9mo ago
* During the lockdown. Covid is supposed to have started in October 2019, and no one locked down until nearly six months later.
- barrucadu 9mo ago
  Was the lockdown not during the pandemic?
  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    It was six months after it started and arguably after it ended.
dataflow 9mo ago
Between ICs and managers, which ones more commonly left the meeting room early vs. on time/late?
theshrike79 9mo ago
> The biggest predictor for people who prefer starting late is how crowded their schedules are. Managers tend to have very crowded schedules which means they want a break between meetings, while ICs prefer not having to waste time waiting. Dunno if people here know this Paul guy, but he wrote about this: https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html =)

by tanvach 9mo ago

conductr 9mo ago

I’ve experienced this all before in similar ways. The metric for meetings ending on time isn’t even very useful because when it’s needed people will ask “do you have a hard stop?” or similarly agree to continue the meeting. Often because of all the points you made, it’s the IC that stick around to talk about finer points or specifics of what was decided or discussed. It’s best to do this while it’s fresh and between people that can “talk shop” at a granular level (whatever that means for your org/team). It’s actually a good thing your ICs want to collaborate or align separate from management. If you’re a manager and you could technically continue on the meeting, consider opting out to give them space as peers. I often ask “do you all need me to stay one?” and most often it’s a No. It all means that it’s basically 2 meetings occurring and it’s the scheduling calendar artifact that is faulty.

RedShift1 9mo ago

What are ICs?

JustinAiken 9mo ago
Individual Contributors - not managmenet
- 7bit 9mo ago
  That almost sounds insulting. Like management is the only party with vision, drive and a goal and everybody else is just there to help. When often management just manages and true innovation really comes from people of all positions.
  - rgoulter 9mo ago
    Eh. It's a relatively common term. I wouldn't read too much into it. I'd rather not have by ass kissed with a term like "everyday innovator". -- "Individual Contributor" is fine.
    - ljf 9mo ago
      I like it - though we use SME- Subject Matter Expert. E.g. If you aren't an SME or a Manager, then why are you in the meeting? (SME encompasses PM and BA roles, as they too should be experts in their domain and ideally on the domain we are working on.)
      - criley2 9mo ago
        SME and IC are functionally different. SME informs, IC creates. Often, IC aren't SME in the space they're developing in, because they're SME of the technology instead of the business.
        refulgentis 9mo ago
        This whole thing reminds me why I never wanna work for someone again. From what I saw at Google it all just ends up being classist top-down BS of who isn't allowed at the big kids table, or bottom-up BS by insisting they aren't the SME just the IC and we can't do anything until the XYZ PM SME TL and/or manager approve. It is unparsable Dilbert nonsense to anyone outside of specific scenarios. And it causes interminable discontent. Because what if the SME is the PM because they know business and tech but the SME is actually the IC because they know the tech and its tech but what if the manager is actually the SME because they're running the tech and may need to redelegate if the IC needs vacation, blah blah blah. (job history: college dropout waiter => my own startup, sold => Google for 8 years => my own startup)

steve1977 9mo ago

In my experience, the best approach is simply to have as few meetings as possible.

onion2k 9mo ago
People don't know what 'as few as possible' means though. It needs to be clearer than that. As a rule I encourage my reports to consider: - Does it even need to be a meeting? Keeping meetings to things that need 'a discussion or decision', and keeping updates and announcements to chat or email works fairly well. - Does the meeting give you any value, or do you bring value to it? If both are no they should decline it. - Is there an agenda with expected outcomes? No agenda and no goal means it should be declined. - Are you doing something that's a higher priority? Seeing one of my reports in a meeting when there's an active incident in progress gets me asking questions. - Does the person running the meeting share notes afterwards? One thing I've noticed over the last couple of decades is that people are much happier to skip a meeting if they'll still hear about what happens afterwards. People don't skip them if being in the meeting is the only way to know about what was discussed or decided. I always encourage people to write some notes and share them if they've set up a meeting now.
- pixl97 9mo ago
  >much happier to skip a meeting if they'll still hear about what happens afterwards. If you're just a 'follower' of what's going on, that's fine. The problem shows up when you have some stakeholder or steering ability. If you miss meeting about X and don't bring up discussion about Y then other person A may not talk about Z that affects X. But I agree that every meeting should have a point and total number of meetings should be minimized.

bjackman 9mo ago

> The biggest predictor for people who prefer starting late is how crowded their schedules are. Managers tend to have very crowded schedules which means they want a break between meetings, while ICs prefer not having to waste time waiting. I have had a few senior managers (at Google) who ask for all the meetings _they_ attend to start 5 minutes late. This seems 100% reasonable to me. No need for it to be an org policy. Just a affordance for the people who spend 95% of their working hours in meetings. I've also had several senior managers at Google who _don't_ do this, but are 5 minutes late for every meeting anyway. This alternative is pretty annoying!

JamesSwift 9mo ago
Or they can just drop off 5 minutes before their next meeting and avoid having everyone else adapt to their preferred start time?? Even better is they only need to use that method when meetings actually run full time rather than every single meeting they are in
- crazygringo 9mo ago
  The problem is that final decisions tend to be made in the last 30 seconds of a meeting. If you're a manager with a stake in the outcome, you can't leave the meeting until you've ensured that the outcome works for you. Leaving 5 min early is often simply not an option. While arriving 5 minutes late is. It's not an ego thing -- it's the fact that meeting leaders often let meetings run long.

earino 9mo ago

What joy to bump into you in the comments section! I definitely preferred 5 minutes past, but my calendar was pretty awful. What was really awful, however, was when your calendar was a random mishmash of starts at :00, :05, :30 and :35 :-)

tanvach 9mo ago
Indeed :) Ah yes I agree! That was awful to everyone (and to analyze!).

potato3732842 9mo ago

>ICs tend to stick around and over run meetings, while managers tend to leave meetings on time. That makes 200% sense. A couple or more ICs tend to want to stick around to go off topic or drill down on some thing if they don't have a conflict. People who aren't expressly relevant to that or have a conflict drop at that time. You're basically seeing the post-meeting hall conversation of the ICs in your data.

carlmr 9mo ago
Additionally, most meetings are worthless drivel from an IC perspective. The off-topic/drilldown is usually when ICs actually discuss topics relevant to them and get into a level of detail on issues that actually helps further the project.
phantom784 9mo ago
Not to mention that managers are way more likely to have back-to-back meetings.

nephihaha 9mo ago

* During the lockdown. Covid is supposed to have started in October 2019, and no one locked down until nearly six months later.

barrucadu 9mo ago
Was the lockdown not during the pandemic?
- nephihaha 9mo ago
  It was six months after it started and arguably after it ended.

dataflow 9mo ago

Between ICs and managers, which ones more commonly left the meeting room early vs. on time/late?

theshrike79 9mo ago

> The biggest predictor for people who prefer starting late is how crowded their schedules are. Managers tend to have very crowded schedules which means they want a break between meetings, while ICs prefer not having to waste time waiting. Dunno if people here know this Paul guy, but he wrote about this: https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html =)