Sorry, I must have misunderstood what you meant. If all you're saying is that sometimes, it's good to call a meeting to make a decision, I don't think we disagree.
On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 4:56 PM, Milan Sreckovic <msrecko...@mozilla.com> wrote: > > > On 2013-04-25, at 2:07 PM, Justin Lebar <justin.le...@gmail.com> wrote: > >>> Justin pointed out his earlier post and the apparent disagreement I had >>> with it with the >>> "pick a long thread topic" example - and he has a point. I meant it as an >>> example, and >>> didn't say as much, and I meant more to focus on decision making, and >>> didn't say that >>> either. >> >> I also meant "pick a long newsgroup thread" as an example. I still >> disagree with using the platform meeting for decision-making. >> > > > The reason the whole thread started is because Lawrence is looking for > suggestion whether we need changes, and if so, what they are. I'm pretty > sure that a quick vote right now would give us a great majority that thinks > that the days of all of platform engineers in a single meeting are long gone. > > >> >>> However, if a particular topic is announced as "we've exchanged e-mails >>> over two weeks >>> on the topic X and we think we should now make a decision", then only the >>> people >>> interested would show up. >> >> The idea that the people in timezones which allow them to attend the >> meeting are privileged to participate directly in decisions made >> there, and anyone else who wants to participate in these decisions >> needs a proxy, is antithetical to how Mozilla works and ought to work, >> I think. > > OK. Yet we have meetings. > >> >>> So, just by showing up, you're claiming to have interest in the particular >>> topic. >> >> Well, you're claiming to have interest in /a/ particular topic, which >> might be just one of many discussed at the meeting. Even in the event >> that the agenda is announced ahead of time (good luck with that), you >> may have to wait through an hour-long meeting just to talk for sixty >> seconds. > > There would be one topic per meeting. One decision. > >> >> Maybe we're solving a problem here that we don't have. I think we're >> perfectly capable of debating and deciding things over e-mail. Do you >> disagree, and do you have evidence for this? > > Do I have evidence that synchronous communication is useful at times? Are > you really suggesting that all the decision making is always best done > asynchronously? > >> >> It seems to me that decisions that need in-depth, live debate are >> poorly suited for a meeting that nominally involves all of >> engineering. I have difficulty fathoming a decision which is simple >> enough to be decided in a few minutes on a conference call involving >> hundreds of engineers, but is so complex that we can't decide it >> effectively over e-mail. > > I agree with "all of engineering". I think that topic is dead. There is no > meeting useful for all of platform engineering, other than the "announcement" > ones. > >> >> Perhaps you could provide an example of something that you think would >> have been decided much better in the paradigm that you're suggesting. > > An e-mail topic that takes 20 replies is often a waste of time. A small > number of people was interesting in this particular topic to start, and at > this point, an even smaller number cares. So, instead of the five that do > care getting on the phone for 15 minutes, we are going to spend two hours > typing and reading the e-mails. > Yes, sending everything to everybody is open, and that's great. At some > point, with the company 10x the size it was, there is going to be so much > stuff flying around that we won't be able to get to the stuff we care about. > > A much simpler example is the bug triage. Takes a lot less time to reach a > decision with everybody involved in the room. > >> >>> The time zone mess is, well, a mess. Not much that can be done about it in >>> general. >> >> This is begging the question. Of course something can be done about >> the timezone mess: Asynchronous communication works around the problem >> entirely. > > True. And yet, we do have meetings. And yet we do have work weeks and can't > wait to have them, and rave about how useful they are. > > _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
