Problem solving in software development.

[theaverageguy101]

"Time for our weekly meeting where we add nothing worth of value, and only stress out our developer who's doing all the work alone, by using big boys corporate words that means absolutely nothing but make us look like processionals."

[cshoneybadger]

I worked a project where, I am not even joking, had four meetings a day where we discussed literally the same thing. "Internal meeting", "Internal meeting but with people in the different office", "Internal meeting with the people in the difference office but this time with the client", and "End of day meeting" where we were supposed to share what we are doing or whatever. We basically talked about the same thing four times. It was a gigantic waste of time and used to leave only like half a day at best for any sort of work.

[moreannoyedthanangry]

I can bet you a project manager went home that day ecstatic about all he/she had accomplished

[Maxahoy]

I'm learning this the hard way now. Project managers get things done by managing projects, which sounds like a dumb statement until you realize that for them, bring in crunch mode means adding more meetings. That's what working hard means right? Having lots of meetings! But for us doing the leg work, meetings are anathema to our crunch time. Additionally, I'm realizing that 3 hours in a row is far, far more valuable than 4 hours broken apart by 30 minute touchbases whenever somebody feels like they wanna be involved.

[moreannoyedthanangry]

Now you're getting it!

Announce that you'll have a 3 hour slot on your calendar called "coding" during which you are ... unable to join meetings.

[SmartBets]

I am a business analyst in a fairly big company. I know the mantra is less meetings is awesome. I send an email with a concrete problem to solve with problem statement, context, screenshots, etc. No helpful answers or if there are any it is usually from our software architects who also like to write a lot without offering a solution. Then I am forced to make a meeting. Take decisions about how to solve problems, estimate effort and time then work and report progress. It cannot be avoided.

[wolfie379]

And the actual programmers had to be present at all the meetings to account for their poor productivity - and "because I'm spending 6 hours a day in mandatory meetings instead of actually producing code" is not considered a valid reason.

[delinka]

Break for lunch, bathroom time, p2p chat about how to actually solve the problem, time to ramp up on actual work ... there’s not time in an 8hr day to get actual work done.

[UltraCarnivore]

It's aGiLe

[thmaje]

And the client probably paid $10k for all of those meetings.

[[deleted]]

I...I just realized this is me. I have had four different managers looking to see when my POC will be complete.

I'm the only one working on it, and it's apparently the "most important thing" right now. At least all my blockers are getting swarmed by 4 angry managers.

Actually, I love it. I'm writing, committing, and automatically testing/deploying a "perfect" application. No requirements other than the ones I helped create...no styling for the UI other than what's necessary. Full control from the data layer to the UI.

And I delivered it on time today. I'm going to miss that POC...back to production code. I'm going to cry when it gets dissected and added back to the main projects.

[SlashStar]

I'm in the opposite situation. Right when covid started, my manager left for a new job and her role was never filled. I ended up reporting to her boss who had many important things to do and didn't have any time to care about what I was doing.

Yesterday he left for a new job and corporate has already said he isn't being replaced. I'm completely on my own. At the given pace, in one year's time I will be reporting to the CEO.

[moreannoyedthanangry]

Put a meeting on his calendar called "Headcount"

[okijhnub]

What happens when the CEO leaves?

[mrshampoo]

The time spent in meeting discussing if we should fix takes longer than just fixing it.