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Comment by dkokelley | Hacker News Reader

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dkokelley

1. Here's what I'm working on. (Is this a good use of my time?)

2. Here are my blockers. (Can you help clear the way so I can do my work?)

3. Here's what's going on in my life (relationship building, context for manager to understand your work and capacity)

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I've seen this in a few places before.

1 and 2 should be daily/biweekly/weekly check-ins either via a stand up or by a message/email, they do not warrant a 1-on-1 and wastes people's time to make managers feel better.

3 seems like it could be abused by a manager and feels a little forced by the sounds of it. Does the manager share equally about their availability to act accordingly?

#3 can be abused, but a 1 on 1 isn't meant to solve a bad culture.

Think of it more like "oh yeah my kid just started soccer at school", "we found this neat new restaurant", etc. It's relationship building. Work is more fun when you like the people you work with!

It is not about simple updates. Questions about project prioritisation and blockers totally belong to a 1-on-1. They are easier to discuss face to face rather than over email.

> 1 and 2 should be daily/biweekly/weekly check-ins either via a stand up or by a message/email, they do not warrant a 1-on-1 and wastes people's time to make managers feel better

Some people communicate or receive feedback better in person/video than over email, and that's okay!

Which might be why GP said 'either via a stand up or'?

#3 can work. My last two managers were decent people with interesting stuff they did outside of work.

I've enjoyed sharing some war stories in my experience volunteering at various places.

I'll totally talk for hours about any number of topics.

I've also done what's probably "life coaching". There are a lot of things I've learned managing a mental illness. Not a therapist, but I know a lot of the techniques and what's worked for me or other people.

> I've also done what's probably "life coaching". There are a lot of things I've learned managing a mental illness. Not a therapist, but I know a lot of the techniques and what's worked for me or other people.

Be careful about playing work therapist, it can lead to boundaries getting blurred in a way that becomes detrimental to the relationship and ultimately your career over the long run.

Yeah. I don't play therapist. I just offer to give advice from time to time. I know where to point people. Knowing where to start or what the options are is invaluable.

If someone really needs help, the most I'll do is spend 15 minutes showing them how to find a suitable professional.

I had to play therapist to a few teammates and I never want to repeat that experience again.

It's really stressful trying to prod someone to get their life back together when they clearly need professional help and maybe medication.

I'm an engineer, I'm not built to be a life coach in any way.

Yeah. I used the term loosely. I don't play therapist. I just give advice occasionally. With my current job, I do check in to see if my coworkers aren't overworking themselves, but it's a mutual thing. Team culture is pretty awesome.

Only close friends get my time and energy. (Coworkers are not friends.) Even then, I've got firm boundaries. I'll be there when I can but I'm nobody's emotional support dog. :)

I will start with 3 and 1&2

Aren't the first two covered at standup every day?

My management do not attend standup and I prefer it that way.

I don't really understand this sentiment. Management joining or not should have 0 effect on standup. They should only be there to hear what folks are working on and or also to give their own updates.

Management being present really does change the dynamic of pretty much any meeting. I watch as junior members of the team either clam up or start show boating. There is even a correlation between camera off and management being present. IMO developers have their best discussions when there is nobody there to impress.

I as a manager join the stand up, and I offer to the team the things I am working on and the blockers I am dealing with, just like everyone else in the standup. Maybe it makes more sense for me because as a manager I have a little bit of dev work that happens as well which is maybe just a culture thing at my work place. I can see how it would be detrimental to join standup and be seen as an auditor of all the things that the team is working on.

It is slightly different if the manager is also a developer, in which case they also have blockers to report. We have scrum masters to deal with blockers. They are not management, just one of the developers most of the time although I have had dedicated scrum masters in the past. The crucial thing is to make the standup a safe space for devs to openly discuss problems without their line manager breathing down their necks. The other thing management tend to do in stand ups is to use the time for irrelevant announcements, most of which should have been an email.

Wait WHAT. Who is standing up then?! Just the workers? haha That is hilarious. If you never had the stand up again, do you think anything would change in your day-to-day?

It's common for standups to be attended only by workers. They're a forum for open lateral communication, not communication up the ladder.

As soon as you add management into the mix, people get cagey and the standup becomes less effective.

To expand on the idea a bit here, I thought the point was like a huddle between plays for the players. Yes, there should be a communication line out of the huddle to get information and such, but by and large the idea is to empower the team to do things the way that they think it needs doing.

Yes, exactly. Of course, lots of places do have intrusive management and turn standups into another form of supervision, but that's really not the point. It's sort of sad/ironic that GP was mocking the entire idea of a developer-led standup.

I'm a PM now and I run my team's standups, but even that may not be ideal depending on the perception of PMs within the organization. I think it's great when there's a tech lead or senior team member who wants to do the job -- they have the authority and experience to resolve issues quickly, but are still perceived as a collaborator, not a supervisor.

> I'm a PM now and I run my team's standups

You're management, you are not communicating laterally.

PM has "manager" in the name, but it's not management. Literally everything a good PM does comes from credibility, competence and soft power. A PM's primary mandate is to make a product that benefits the user, but we don't make staffing decisions, do 1:1s, performance reviews or other "management" things. It's why the job is hard.

But I openly acknowledge that PM can be perceived as a tentacle of management, which is why I said it's not necessarily right to follow my current example.

>It's common for standups to be attended only by workers

I have never seen this in 20+ years of work.

Management is supposed to be in the standup to help remove blockers.

Scrum Master is the one who handles removing blockers, "Management" doesn't need to be there for every standup. It's a waste of their time.

Scrum Masters should also be just a member of the team, not a "master" per se.

I know almost no one does this, but the absolute best standup meetings I've experienced have meeting of the just workers, by just the workers, to let just the workers know what's going on around them so they can self-direct.

The addition of management always turns it into a status update.

I think standup is a great way to communicate blockers or solutions (understanding that it will be quick, else you parking lot it until after the meeting) with teammates. It restricts interruptions to that 15 minute block instead of randomly throughout the day (which can break flow).

It’s in public. As a newbie team lead I was taught we need to give ample opportunities to talk, and henceforth to collect discontent as early as it forms.

I wasn’t yet taught why managers do nothing when you have long-standing discontent :)

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