meeting-avoidance for self-managing developers
TRANSCRIPT
@PeterHilton
http://hilton.org.uk/
Meeting-avoidance for self-managing developers
M A N N I N G
Peter HiltonErik BakkerFrancisco CanedoFOREWORD BY James Ward
Covers Play 2
Play for Scala(Manning)
Peter HiltonErik BakkerFrancisco Canedo
http://bit.ly/playscala2p
Agenda (for this meeting)
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The problem with meetings. Getting out of meetings. Positive approaches. Reducing project management cost. Sharing management tasks.
Justin Ennis / CC BY 2.0
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‘M&Ms, managers and meetings’ Why work doesn’t happen at work, according to Happy Melly
http://www.happymelly.com/why-work-does-not-happen-at-work-the-mms/
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Although we cannot avoid all meetings, developers can greatly reduce the number of meetings they have to attend. It isn’t good enough to make meetings more effective.
Getting out of meetings
Tactic 1: Don’t turn up
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You can avoid wasting time in meetings by simply not showing up. Pros: extremely effective way to avoid pointless meetings. Cons: passive-aggressive behaviour is considered rude. Worse: likely to cause follow-up meetings with your boss.
Tactic 2: take a laptop to the meeting
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You can avoid wasting time in meetings by doing work in the meeting. Pros: you get to attend the meeting and write code - the best of both worlds. Cons: using a laptop in a meeting is also considered rude. http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-laptop-herr/
Tactic 3: sit back and relax
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Instead of fighting it, you can accept the meeting, relax and enjoy the time off work. Pros: avoids confrontation with colleagues that may lead to more meetings. Cons: not productive and can become an unbreakable habit (i.e. company culture).
Tactic 4: make sure there’s beer
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If you’re stuck in a long meeting, then beer can make the experience more enjoyable. Pros: even if the meeting drags on for hours, you won’t care. Cons: you have to throw away any code you write afterwards.
Tactic 5: sneak out of the meeting
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You can limit the damage a meeting causes by sneaking out after it has started. Pros: disguises your unwillingness to attend the meeting. Cons: it is extremely difficult to sneak out in plain sight and get away with it.
Negative tactics considered harmful
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Negative tactics for avoiding meetings are ultimately counter-productive. These tactics will not help you or your project. More constructive approaches are needed.
Positive approaches
Positive approaches
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Reduce project management effort. Share project management effort. Hack the working environment.
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‘Project management is communication’ Basecamp Manifesto, 37signals
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‘Programmers are typically stereotyped as non-communicative individuals who like to sit in darkened rooms alone with their computer screens. ‘It is not a true stereotype, though. Programmers just like to communicate about things they like to communicate about.’ Agile Software Development, Alistair Cockburn
What developers can contribute
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Communication skills. A wide selection of communication tools.
More efficient information-sharing. Developers are good at solving information problems.
Reducing project management cost
Project communication tasks
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Planning: communicating what you are going to do Tracking: communicating statusReporting: communicating with external stakeholders
Planning refactored
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Reduce planning cost by making all task information fully accessible. Publish on a wiki. Use a task tracking system, e.g. Trello. The plan is visible (to all) and flexible. The plan is therefore easy to update.
Tracking refactored
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Reduce tracking cost with status visibility. Annotate published task list with status. Use a capable (but simple) tracking tool.
09:06 You joined the channel 09:01 <phb> meeting! we need to discuss the status 09:05 <phb> @#! 09:06 <dev> it's in Trello 09:06 <phb> oh 09:06 phb [[email protected]] left the channel.
Reporting refactored
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(see above)
Sharing project management effort
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‘Management is too important to leave to the managers’ #Workout, Jurgen Appelo
Planning refactored
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Participate in task planning. Understand what the planning is for. Self-assign tasks. Self-manage the development process. Beware planning that is just time wasted managing predictions.
Self-managed software development
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XP, Scrum, Kanban…
Agile software development has reinvented development management. Smaller iterations and continuous delivery reduce project management effort.
Tracking refactored
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If tracking is hard, you’re doing it wrong.
Continuous delivery makes project tracking so easy it feels like cheating. Counting completed items of work is easier and more useful than estimating progress.
Reporting refactored
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Continuous delivery reduces demand for reporting to external stakeholders. If you continually deliver results, you get more trust and fewer status questions. Working out loud (continuous reporting) helps too…
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‘If a day goes by, and I haven’t done something that was publicly visible to someone in the world, then I get really nervous... I feel like I haven’t done anything that day’ Jeff Atwood, Stack Overflow podcast 15
Hack the working environment
Workspace hacks
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Meetings without chairs Meeting-avoidance hardware Outsourced meeting facilities
Stand-up meetings - no chairs
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No chairs – therefore short Fixed agenda – no chair(person) required More effective - no longer work-avoidance
Discourages people from sitting in pointless meetings (which leads to meeting-avoidance)
Helen Cook / CC BY-SA 2.0
Alix Guillard / CC BY-SA 2.0
Improve It / CC BY-SA 2.0
Summary
Warning!
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The purpose of a meeting is not always communication and collaboration. Beware organisations where meetings are used to assert status and power. Organisational change management is an altogether different topic.
Meeting-avoidance
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Find cheaper alternatives to meetings. Use good tools. Talk to each other. Cancel recurring meetings. Find other ways to talk regularly. Hack the working environment. Get meeting-avoidance hardware.
Project management
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Reduce the cost of project management. Use better development methods. Don’t try to eliminate project management Understand what it is needed for. Take on project management tasks. Increase your responsibilities.
