[tonyarkles]

This is tongue firmly in cheek, but I think it really drives home your "Communication is hard" point.

Have you tried reading the meeting agenda and minutes the average engineering manager makes? It's like a freshman essay -- lacking in cohesion, vision, context. It's usually completely unstandardized across teams.

And 9 times out of 10 the most fundamental questions aren't answered in the meetings e.g. "Why don't we just use existing tool X to solve this problem?"

[thrower123]

Agenda? Minutes? I've heard tell of such a thing, but I've yet to meet a manager that actually performs these arcane acts. I've gotten very used to walking into meetings with no more idea of what's going to happen than I can glean from the participants list and the subject on the calendar item...

[scruple]

Oh, cool, we must work together.

I pushed my team hard to get some discipline around meeting agendas. It lasted for a week or two. I threatened to stop attending meetings otherwise. My Director told me to knock it off. So, the signal is clear, right? We're all just fucking around and playing pretend at being professionals.

[alexandercrohde]

Yeah, but the point is, I can ask all of those questions in the meeting if I'm there in person.

[wisty]

You could also read documentation and ask questions about it. And unlike meetings, everyone won't just forget the answer and have to have the discussion next week.