+1 to meeting notes being mailed out or on a feed somewhere. I generally avoid big meetings like the plague because the density of discussion that I'm interested in is too low to warrant my full attention, and I'm not great at context-switching to and from my own work either. I usually just sit there, kind of frustrated, trying to avoid getting involved in discussions that don't actually need my input (giving input is entertaining, but the efficiency cost of weighing in is very high for large meetings).
Even though I don't attend (and don't plan to), I'd very much like to have a summary appear in one of my inboxes so that I can follow up on things that interest me. My workflow is push-based rather than poll-based, and I think that's shared by many other developers. Good engineering decisions often require extremely close analysis of minute details. This scales in an async/distributed model, but doesn't scale at all when things are handled synchronously by large groups. This is why Hixie refuses to join conference calls, for example. Cheers, bholley On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 12:13 PM, Justin Lebar <justin.le...@gmail.com>wrote: > One thing I love about the MoCo meetings is that if I don't go, I > don't miss anything except the chance to ask questions: mbrubeck &co > create detailed minutes (really, transcripts) of every meeting, which > I can read on my schedule. He then e-mails the transcript out to > everyone, so I don't even have to remember to go looking for it. > > Since in-person attendance at the MoCo meetings is non-zero, it seems > clear that some people prefer being in live attendance. That's > totally fine. But at the very least, I think it's useful to recognize > that not everyone is willing or able to attend the meetings live, and > if we think what's going on there is important, we should make an > effort to broadcast it to a larger audience. > > Last time I checked the wiki isn't a canonical record of the > engineering meeting's contents, and last time I checked there's no way > to get notified when a meeting's notes are up (via RSS or e-mail or > whatever). > > On a related note, I think the engineering meeting is a bad place for > having discussions or debating decisions. Inevitably, many of the > people in attendance won't care about this particular issue, so we're > just wasting their time. And similarly, at our current numeric and > geographic scale it's inevitable that people who do care about the > issue won't be in attendance at the meeting and thus won't be able to > participate. I think therefore that discussions / debates are > better-suited for our newsgroups or for smaller meetings. > > -Justin > > On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 2:26 PM, Lawrence Mandel <lman...@mozilla.com> > wrote: > > tl;dr > > I would like to make the platform meeting more relevant for engineers. I > have already made some changes (see below) and am interested in your > feedback on what you would like to get out of this meeting. If you don't > currently attend, what would make this meeting relevant for you? > > > > --- > > Since taking over management of the Platform meeting in February, my > goal has been to make it more engineer driven and more relevant to the > day-to-day activities of engineers. I think that there is value in having a > forum for Mozilla's engineers to speak with one another on a regular basis. > However, with the size of Mozilla's engineering base, creating a useful > forum is a challenge. > > > > Some of the changes that we've made are: > > > > - Engineers are once again doing the talking - Many of the technical > updates were being given by project managers. No more. Updates for > engineers, by engineers. So far, I think this has been successful in > changing the tone of the meeting. > > > > - More talk about work in progress - Reporting about completed work is > great. However, we are now also talking about active projects. I think work > that touches common sections of the code base or work that is likely to > impact other teams is especially useful to flag. > > > > - Identify topics that are stalled / need more attention - Over the last > month I have seen a new focus on stability and orange factor issues. I have > also seen a number of calls for help in identifying the source of issues. > > > > - Invite other teams to speak with engineering - I invited Sheppy to > join us to discuss documentation. I would encourage the invitation of other > teams with which we collaborate to join the meeting for specific topics. > > > > - Flag important discussions from across Mozilla's mailing lists - A > number of people have commented to me that there are too many lists to > track. This meeting is an opportunity to surface key online discussions to > ensure they have the participation of the right people and reach a > conclusion. > > > > Some other suggestions are: > > > > - A review of best practices and anti-pattens in order to build the > technical vitality of the Mozilla engineering organization. > > > > - More involvement by more people. The product and project sections of > the agenda do not have a specific owner. You can bring up any related work > wherever you think it makes sense. There are also the catchall sections > "Key Issues" and "Roundtable" if you are not sure where your update belongs. > > > > I want this meeting to be relevant for you. However, I am just a steward > for this meeting. I need your help. Why do you attend the platform meeting? > If you previously attended the meeting, why did you stop? Do you have ideas > to make the Platform meeting more useful? > > > > Thanks, > > > > Lawrence > > _______________________________________________ > > dev-platform mailing list > > dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org > > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform > _______________________________________________ > dev-platform mailing list > dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform > _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
