I’m inclined to agree with all this but when I’m conversation with someone who has only ever been in a Manager schedule, what would you recommend I point to as actual evidence?
Specifically on the cost of meetings to developers.
Specifically on the cost of meetings to developers.
I don't really have this problem, but my co-workers often put several-hour meetings on their calendar with the meeting name and participants hidden. Seems to work to prevent others from inviting them to meetings during that time.
This article is a pure product of this period when software developers thought themselves as extremely special and above such petty issues as having to attend meetings. It’s entitlement masquerading as wisdom. The truth is everyone has to balance their time between obligations and slots they can allocate to do longer work. Writers have to meet their editor. Artists have to plan for the logistic of their exhibitions. That’s part of life.
You can work for a bit do something else and get back to what you were doing. If you can’t that’s an issue with you, not the nature of your work.
A) “All meetings are a waste of time.”
B) “There are productivity tradeoffs between a managers schedule and makers schedule.”
Editing some text or repositioning a button or something trivial is 30-min and does not require thought, but most everything is not this. Most everything involves large chunks of time and interrupting this chunk is certainly a disaster.
- both a maker and manager
At the end of the day, most of us expect to get paid for the code we write. At some level, there is a customer who is ultimately paying for this code. You need to communicate with them via some means or you won't be able to do your job effectively. Either you talk to your team on some recurring/ad-hoc basis, or you get to talk to the end customers directly.
Which one would HN prefer? Filtered internal comms channels where you get to whine and moan about basically everything, or the direct fire of the actual customer where everything is on their terms always? What would ruin your "flow" more? A boring 30 minute call where you were informed the customer is "not happy" or a 2 hour, unfiltered rant session from the live customer?