Re:Meetings *Are* the Work
by danaris on Saturday February 25, 2023 @03:34PM
(#34940180)
I think part of the problem here is the very different kinds of meetings that exist.
On the one hand, we have what I think you are describing: people who do the work—people who are, in fact, doing the work—getting together to do that work together. Personally, I'd call this something like a "collaboration session" (because clearly, we need better terminology for more clarity).
On the other, we have the kinds of meetings that I think most of the other people in this thread are talking about: the kind where managers get together with individual contributors for various reasons not directly related to performing the tasks at hand. (These range from getting status updates that they can then pass up the chain, to trying in vain to understand how things are going because they're too technically inept, to straight-up time-filling to attempt to justify their worth, with a wide variety of other flavors besides.) I'd call these "management BS," because I'm not too kindly disposed toward them, but perhaps someone else can come up with a less judgmental term.
There are also some other kinds of meetings—for instance, meetings between individual contributors and various kinds of stakeholders in order to get initial or better specifications for performing the tasks; brief check-in meetings to make sure everything's running smoothly; meetings that were called because someone involved is either conducting themselves poorly or not performing well...etc, etc. These don't fall neatly into either of those two categories, and may be positive, negative, or neutral, but I think they're also mostly less common than the two described above.
Some people's jobs require a lot of collaboration sessions to get the work done. Some do not. This is going to depend very heavily on the specific work environments. Personally, I'm currently in a position where there are no other ICs to collaborate with, so I don't have those.
If you've been lucky enough to avoid management BS, then congratulations. I've seen more than enough of it (both first- and second-hand) to know that it's absolutely real, it's very often caused by management ineptitude and insecurity, and that even when the meeting itself may have some worth to it, far, far too often it's not run well and just ends up wasting everyone's time because of that.
On the one hand, we have what I think you are describing: people who do the work—people who are, in fact, doing the work—getting together to do that work together. Personally, I'd call this something like a "collaboration session" (because clearly, we need better terminology for more clarity).
On the other, we have the kinds of meetings that I think most of the other people in this thread are talking about: the kind where managers get together with individual contributors for various reasons not directly related to performing the tasks at hand. (These range from getting status updates that they can then pass up the chain, to trying in vain to understand how things are going because they're too technically inept, to straight-up time-filling to attempt to justify their worth, with a wide variety of other flavors besides.) I'd call these "management BS," because I'm not too kindly disposed toward them, but perhaps someone else can come up with a less judgmental term.
There are also some other kinds of meetings—for instance, meetings between individual contributors and various kinds of stakeholders in order to get initial or better specifications for performing the tasks; brief check-in meetings to make sure everything's running smoothly; meetings that were called because someone involved is either conducting themselves poorly or not performing well...etc, etc. These don't fall neatly into either of those two categories, and may be positive, negative, or neutral, but I think they're also mostly less common than the two described above.
Some people's jobs require a lot of collaboration sessions to get the work done. Some do not. This is going to depend very heavily on the specific work environments. Personally, I'm currently in a position where there are no other ICs to collaborate with, so I don't have those.
If you've been lucky enough to avoid management BS, then congratulations. I've seen more than enough of it (both first- and second-hand) to know that it's absolutely real, it's very often caused by management ineptitude and insecurity, and that even when the meeting itself may have some worth to it, far, far too often it's not run well and just ends up wasting everyone's time because of that.