Re:NASA Puts Jet Propulsion Lab on Blast over Psyche Mission...
by dtgriscom on Sunday November 06, 2022 @08:13AM
(#33492227)
For the past decade I've worked for a company whose headquarters is 500 miles away. I have 3-6 video meetings a day with engineers at the headquarters (as well as all over the world).
Until the pandemic, I visited headquarters every few months to catch up with the teams. I found that in informal chats (in the halls, walking into someone's office, having lunch) I discovered so much that never came up during video calls. It's similar to, but worse than, formal in-person meetings with agendas; there's an activation energy people need to overcome to bring up something that may seem small but is actually critical to the project.
Someone in a video meetings with their camera off is even worse; you have almost no emotional connection with them, and it's natural for them to only "speak if spoken to".
Until the pandemic, I visited headquarters every few months to catch up with the teams. I found that in informal chats (in the halls, walking into someone's office, having lunch) I discovered so much that never came up during video calls. It's similar to, but worse than, formal in-person meetings with agendas; there's an activation energy people need to overcome to bring up something that may seem small but is actually critical to the project.
Someone in a video meetings with their camera off is even worse; you have almost no emotional connection with them, and it's natural for them to only "speak if spoken to".