Comments on: How to Reduce Number of Meetings to One per Quarter http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one.html Dealing with software projects in real life Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:07:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Pawel Brodzinski http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one.html#comment-5110 Pawel Brodzinski Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:21:24 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one-per-quarter.html#comment-5110 Disturbing others is definitely a downside of this approach and a painful one. If you work in an open space with people from other projects it can be a problem if you discuss your project stuff too frequently. I'd advise to organize teams in a way which allows them to occupy one room per one project even if this mean changing desks a couple of times a year. Having said that I'm aware not every company is willing (or can) do this so there will always be these huge open spaces filled with people working on different things where it's hard to openly talk all the time. Disturbing others is definitely a downside of this approach and a painful one. If you work in an open space with people from other projects it can be a problem if you discuss your project stuff too frequently.

I’d advise to organize teams in a way which allows them to occupy one room per one project even if this mean changing desks a couple of times a year. Having said that I’m aware not every company is willing (or can) do this so there will always be these huge open spaces filled with people working on different things where it’s hard to openly talk all the time.

]]> By: Raghavendra Kulkarni http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one.html#comment-5095 Raghavendra Kulkarni Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:56:33 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one-per-quarter.html#comment-5095 Pawel, Great post! The upsides & downsides of having meetings at desk have been captured well. In my organization & many other IT companies in India, team members are seated together or near each other so that any intra-team discussions(technical/non-technical) -read meetings happen at desk in quick & efficient manner. However, as has been mentioned in one of the comments, we have often experienced that such discussions might disturb others(from different projects) and hence we try to do a proper balance of meetings at desk and meetings in conference rooms! Pawel,
Great post! The upsides & downsides of having meetings at desk have been captured well. In my organization & many other IT companies in India, team members are seated together or near each other so that any intra-team discussions(technical/non-technical) -read meetings happen at desk in quick & efficient manner. However, as has been mentioned in one of the comments, we have often experienced that such discussions might disturb others(from different projects) and hence we try to do a proper balance of meetings at desk and meetings in conference rooms!

]]> By: Pawel Brodzinski http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one.html#comment-3188 Pawel Brodzinski Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:08:24 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one-per-quarter.html#comment-3188 David, I eager to hear your experience with working for Federal Government with less formalized approaches. I've always been told they force vendors to follow very strict rules while you seem to have much freedom. If you already have all developers in one place Kanban implementation should go smooth. Co-location is a biggest Kanban booster you can think of. David,

I eager to hear your experience with working for Federal Government with less formalized approaches. I’ve always been told they force vendors to follow very strict rules while you seem to have much freedom.

If you already have all developers in one place Kanban implementation should go smooth. Co-location is a biggest Kanban booster you can think of.

]]> By: David Hopkins http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one.html#comment-3185 David Hopkins Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:33:05 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one-per-quarter.html#comment-3185 You're describing a "bull pen". I've been designing "bull pens" and putting teams into them for years. When I get into a new group, that is the first order of business. There is no better way for the team to keep on top of the workload as a whole. Currently we have 2, content team and developers. The developers have the fridge so the content team is regularly in there anyway. As a result we have reduced our "meetings" to once a week on Monday morning. This one meeting is where we bring the client into the fold, and air out items where we may need his actions. I'm currently in the US Federal Government arena and getting client buy in is usually not the easiest thing to do. Side note, I'm currently in the process of disposing of the "waterfall" methodologies they are using and replacing them with a Kanban board. Wish me luck. You’re describing a “bull pen”. I’ve been designing “bull pens” and putting teams into them for years. When I get into a new group, that is the first order of business. There is no better way for the team to keep on top of the workload as a whole. Currently we have 2, content team and developers. The developers have the fridge so the content team is regularly in there anyway. As a result we have reduced our “meetings” to once a week on Monday morning. This one meeting is where we bring the client into the fold, and air out items where we may need his actions. I’m currently in the US Federal Government arena and getting client buy in is usually not the easiest thing to do.

Side note, I’m currently in the process of disposing of the “waterfall” methodologies they are using and replacing them with a Kanban board. Wish me luck.

]]> By: Pawel Brodzinski http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one.html#comment-3078 Pawel Brodzinski Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:20:17 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one-per-quarter.html#comment-3078 Rubio, I am aware of cost of distraction and still I believe co-location is way better than private offices. Actually I think most people are able to turn themselves off in a way they don't hear other people talking until it becomes interesting. We have these turn-back-on moment all the time: a question is addressed to someone and he tells "give me the context, I haven't listened to you." Another thing is people rush to tell that each interruption steals 15 minutes of productivity but I haven't seen people telling how much time it takes when people don't talk with each other when they should. Well, a couple of hours banging the wall with QA guy head before he asks developer for help? Half a day implementing wrong version because someone hasn't told it won't work anyway? Send people to different rooms and they will talk with each other few times less. Send people to different floors and they would talk with each other as often as if they sit in different cities. I am with you when it comes to a strong personalities who take the meeting over. I am because it sometimes happen that I am the person who drives the meeting in some strange direction and no one "takes the ball" from me since, well, I am the one who should do it. That's definitely something I need to work on. Rubio,

I am aware of cost of distraction and still I believe co-location is way better than private offices. Actually I think most people are able to turn themselves off in a way they don’t hear other people talking until it becomes interesting. We have these turn-back-on moment all the time: a question is addressed to someone and he tells “give me the context, I haven’t listened to you.”

Another thing is people rush to tell that each interruption steals 15 minutes of productivity but I haven’t seen people telling how much time it takes when people don’t talk with each other when they should. Well, a couple of hours banging the wall with QA guy head before he asks developer for help? Half a day implementing wrong version because someone hasn’t told it won’t work anyway?

Send people to different rooms and they will talk with each other few times less. Send people to different floors and they would talk with each other as often as if they sit in different cities.

I am with you when it comes to a strong personalities who take the meeting over. I am because it sometimes happen that I am the person who drives the meeting in some strange direction and no one “takes the ball” from me since, well, I am the one who should do it. That’s definitely something I need to work on.

]]> By: Rubio http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one.html#comment-3076 Rubio Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:54:24 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one-per-quarter.html#comment-3076 About open workspaces Designing software is knowledge work. Hence it requires concentration. How easily people are distracted by outside interference differs from person to person. Open workspaces incourage people to interact, which, at best, improves communication. At worst, it doesn't. The frequency of interruption is also increased. When you're in the "zone", it usually takes 10-15 minutes to get back into it after an interruption. If you get, say, 4 interruptions per hour, you don't get much work done. So, to a developer who is sensitive to interference, an open workspace with frequent interruption is an imposible place to work in. About meetings Whether a meeting was successful can, or at least should, be measured by how well it reached its goal. Therefore each meeting should have a clear goal. What are the problems that need to be solved. What are the things that will be dicussed and, more importantly, as people have a tendency to digress, what are the things that will NOT be discussed. All this requires a strong leader, someone who keeps everyone on track. Another problem with face-to-face meetings is that people with strong personalities tend to overpower the less vocal individuals. Again, it comes down to the leader to keep the discussion balanced. If a discussion starts to get out of hand, I use a mutex, my stress ball. Only the person holding the ball is allowed to talk. (Since it's soft, it's safe to throw around.) Well coordinated meetings are extremely fruitful. About open workspaces
Designing software is knowledge work. Hence it requires concentration. How easily people are distracted by outside interference differs from person to person. Open workspaces incourage people to interact, which, at best, improves communication. At worst, it doesn’t. The frequency of interruption is also increased. When you’re in the “zone”, it usually takes 10-15 minutes to get back into it after an interruption. If you get, say, 4 interruptions per hour, you don’t get much work done. So, to a developer who is sensitive to interference, an open workspace with frequent interruption is an imposible place to work in.

About meetings
Whether a meeting was successful can, or at least should, be measured by how well it reached its goal. Therefore each meeting should have a clear goal. What are the problems that need to be solved. What are the things that will be dicussed and, more importantly, as people have a tendency to digress, what are the things that will NOT be discussed. All this requires a strong leader, someone who keeps everyone on track. Another problem with face-to-face meetings is that people with strong personalities tend to overpower the less vocal individuals. Again, it comes down to the leader to keep the discussion balanced. If a discussion starts to get out of hand, I use a mutex, my stress ball. Only the person holding the ball is allowed to talk. (Since it’s soft, it’s safe to throw around.) Well coordinated meetings are extremely fruitful.

]]> By: Josh Nankivel http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one.html#comment-2855 Josh Nankivel Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:23:49 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one-per-quarter.html#comment-2855 Bas de Baar and I discussed this post in What's Up in Project Management? <a href="http://whatsupinpm.com/show-1-intros-chaos-and-meetings/" rel="nofollow">http://whatsupinpm.com/show-1-intros-chaos-and-meetings</a> Bas de Baar and I discussed this post in What’s Up in Project Management?

http://whatsupinpm.com/show-1-intros-chaos-and-meetings

]]> By: Josh http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one.html#comment-2446 Josh Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:21:40 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one-per-quarter.html#comment-2446 Great post Pawel, this is definitely a huge benefit of co-located small teams.<br /><br />I wrote a post a while back on <a href="http://pmstudent.com/help-your-people-escape-meeting-hell/" rel="nofollow">helping your team escape from meeting hell</a> that I was reminded of while reading your post. Great post Pawel, this is definitely a huge benefit of co-located small teams.

I wrote a post a while back on helping your team escape from meeting hell that I was reminded of while reading your post.

]]> By: Pawel Brodzinski http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one.html#comment-2445 Pawel Brodzinski Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:49:43 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one-per-quarter.html#comment-2445 Glen,<br /><br />Exactly. You can say we have basically no team meetings at all, but you can say we are at the meeting all the time too. It's just sometimes everybody is silent. Glen,

Exactly. You can say we have basically no team meetings at all, but you can say we are at the meeting all the time too. It's just sometimes everybody is silent.

]]> By: Glen B. Alleman http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one.html#comment-2444 Glen B. Alleman Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:05:15 +0000 http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/11/how-to-reduce-number-of-meetings-to-one-per-quarter.html#comment-2444 So you've redefined the term "meeting" to be a continuous conversation in the same room you're working? So you've redefined the term "meeting" to be a continuous conversation in the same room you're working?

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