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Meetings Are Killing Software Development
Since my first job in software development, I was always afraid of team meetings. Now, if you say this article is biased (solely, for this reason), you may stop reading it right now.
Besides myself, though, I have met hundreds of developers who have voiced a similar opinion, not only to myself but also to their supervisors.
The only thing that changed was their job title. That speaks a lot about its gravity and its underlying reasons.
Meetings are killing software industry like termites. Let’s dissect all levels where they screw up, in the order of importance.
1. Objectivity:
Most meetings suck, not because they are boring, or lengthy (which they obviously are). They suck because they are devoid of a concrete business objective.
This mainly happens because inputs to the developer team are not standardized across the industry. Since the rise of Agile, documentation is relegated to a place like that of a treasure chest that stays in the attic, only to be opened at the time when the house is on fire.
Devs who root for stronger documentation from product org are labeled as picky old brats. If they begin documenting, their work is ignored.
A strongly drafted document (by the product teams or business) as a prerequisite to a requirements meeting is the only way to maximize the meeting results. Sadly, the reality is quite the opposite.
Often, meetings about requirements are without any business context. Developers are asked by product owners what the feature will do to customers (a plausible exception is UX where this is necessary, with pre-communication about the display requirements), rather than how it will be developed or what challenges the team will face in delivering it in a given timeline.
Sometimes, when product owners want to hide their ignorance or lack of concrete research, they simply toy with the idea of functionality in the name of brainstorming. Smart POs are excellent discussion starters.
Enthusiastic developers take the bait, jump into the discussion, giving ideas after ideas, believing that they are changing the world. At the end of man-hours of energy spilled, the whiteboards…
