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I have no doubt that this approach works better than recurring meetings, but I do want to point out the trade-off, which is that this approach requires much more management attention and energy to keep their finger on the pulse and ensure all concerns are handled, compared to their time management being on autopilot with recurring meetings.

So it's a bit of a tautology. Managers who manage time better are more effective. Who knew?

by bonesss7 hours ago|

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I’d also give some pushback based on scheduling: fixed meetings are a known quantity people can schedule around.

For coders and people with lives, knowing what their week looks like is critical to planning and stress management (ie in X work hours topic Y will be landed, I have X - 2 hours to have my facts in line; daily 9:15 meeting ends at 9:30, everything after 9:30 is a predictable block I manage).

Now, to the issues and whattabout’s that implies:

1) bruuuuutal meeting discipline: off topic gets killed, new topics insta-popped onto next agenda, scripts of expected responses prepared and shared (“we are green, need approval by X”). Stand if ya gotta, chess-clock if ya gotta, bring in a non-teammate for secretary duties as needed. Meetings are not gab sessions.

2) if that agenda isn’t lava hot with everyone actively getting something, W-O-W, end the meeting. Split off, 1-on-1, task-group it. Fixed project meetings are to make manager-me not have to chase anyone or anything, we are racing to get that done ASAP and the second we’re done it’s time to get the fu… <ahem> grab a coffee, and return to the activities everyone is being paid for. Gab sessions naturally follow, as needed, dynamically adapting to needs and pressures.

Managers who manage meetings manage to meet without meetings managing them. Manage time or time will manage you. The real MBA was the one inside you the entire time.

by ap993 hours ago|

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This sounds horrible to me.

by Nathanba7 hours ago|

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I think it seems tautological to us because it's obvious to us. But other people do not understand or care to understand or even care to think about it. You can see it in this very comment section that there are people swearing how amazingly helpful fixed standups supposedly are even on a whole org level. It's obviously absurd but they have different jobs and priorities, they don't have to understand the inner workings of the product and for them it's invisible that the meetings are almost entirely worthless for the actual workers. The meetings are helping them in their job and so it must be great for the org, that's how many people managers think.

by maccard1 hours ago|

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I’ve been on both sides of this. Engineers who complain loudest about the waste of time from too many meetings will also complain the loudest about how they feel disconnected from the decisions and from the product IME.

by steve_adams_8610 hours ago|

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I've had the same experience with picking specific things to discuss over recurring meetings. A few coworkers and I have frequent, short, high-signal conversations over Slack huddles almost daily, and sometimes we need to converge with others to tackle bigger problems so we set up meetings around those topics.

I really prefer this over recurring meetings. The gist of it is that you're communicating early and often when you can't solve things in isolation, avoiding putting things off or letting understandings of problems atrophy while you wait. Ironically, I do this most with my remote coworkers. They're amazing. The coworkers I have in office are much less keen to give up time for communication. They're great too, in other ways, but harder to communicate with.

Your point about shared mental models is huge. Ironing these things out with another person is invaluable, but having more than one person do it at once means it's multiplied across the team. So many people we work with are building this model in isolation with LLMs, and I'm certain it's harming our collective grasp on what it is that we're actually doing. Very strange times!

It has never seemed more important for humans to communicate with each other and have these shared mental models. To simplify rather than add complexity, to cultivate that meat-space context that gives software purpose in the first place, to understand that purpose, and so on. Interacting with each other fluidly and regularly is such a great way to make that a reality.

by xwowsersx9 hours ago|

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This is the way

by watwut2 hours ago|

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We had that and major part of communication just stopped. People stopped talking about issues or solving them, unless those were super large. The bar to "and now trigger meeting in a team where manager seems to dislike" was too high.

Communication larger died, except a smaller "friendship minigroup".