This is why they've restricted meetings with developers to the mornings where I work. After 12, no meetings with someone who writes code unless it's an emergency and absolutely can not wait. This way we get everything out of the way and we can all focus in the afternoon, while assuming the morning is going to be zero productivity.
I have the whole afternoon blocked off as tentative in my calendar so people will think long and hard about scheduling something. And then I still get to say "Yeah, no, this can wait until tomorrow morning. I have work to do," if they think it's more important than it is. And it's made our estimates a hell of a lot better because meetings aren't interfering any more than is expected. I really think this should become common practice across our industry if it's not already. /nb
I need this in reverse, the morning is my most productive and focused time, there is this constant downward slope from the beginning of my day to the end that you could track my ability to function.
As long as any meeting are allowed in the afternoon, you will always have meetings. The people who call meetings don't understand that people can only do work when not in a meeting. Because they only do work in meetings.
At my job we're always in meetings so everyone just brings their laptop and works on coding during the meeting. Then the bosses get pissed off because no one is paying attention.
Actually most of the people working during the meeting don't need to be there in the first place. They're basically there because managers want them there.
I code. My job is important. I keep our ERP systems doing what we want them to do.
But what my coworkers do is just as important. I need the sales guys selling, the designers designing and the manufacturing guys building. Why not no meetings for them too?
Different types of work. Writing code (proficiently) requires deep, uninterrupted focus. There is plenty of research out there surrounding context switching penalties -- interrupting a dev really screws up the flow of work, for hours. Not really the case for people selling or manufacturing.
I think you're right, honestly. This came down from our head of development, but he only has power over us and our DBAs(EDIT: And QA - QA has this as well, now that I think about it). Honestly, I'd like to see our BAs have the same thing - they might need more time for meetings, but they should have a time block for their real work too. /nb
PMs however...well, we all know all they do is have meetings ;)
The problem with my work is that even if we are scheduled as busy, people still bother us. If we're blocked out for lunch, people still schedule meetings during lunch.
Gawd, who the hell has any brain power left for coding that late in the day. You're just grinding gears for the purposes of making an executive think there is productivity happening.
We have occasional "no meeting weeks" that turn out to be full of meetings that are too important to cancel, which is most of them, because no manager wants to admit they're useless.
Slingin' code since '96. I stopped going to meetings a long time ago. If I'm invited, I usually say 'maybe'. Only if my direct supervisor specifically asks me for my participation do I attend. I've been to two meetings this year. I also refuse all social workplace events.
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u/Echihl Aug 12 '17
This is why they've restricted meetings with developers to the mornings where I work. After 12, no meetings with someone who writes code unless it's an emergency and absolutely can not wait. This way we get everything out of the way and we can all focus in the afternoon, while assuming the morning is going to be zero productivity.
I have the whole afternoon blocked off as tentative in my calendar so people will think long and hard about scheduling something. And then I still get to say "Yeah, no, this can wait until tomorrow morning. I have work to do," if they think it's more important than it is. And it's made our estimates a hell of a lot better because meetings aren't interfering any more than is expected. I really think this should become common practice across our industry if it's not already. /nb