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by jonathankoren 1233 days ago
> I noticed that very technically focused people tend to underestimate the importance of communication. They dislike daily standups, coordination meetings, don't really value informal exchange. All these things take their time out of what they want to do - deep work on solving technical problems

I’d say you’ be taken the wrong lesson from your observations.

Big formal coordination rituals typically are simply round robin of 1:1 communication. Occasionally 1:3, but never ever 1:n when the speaker isn’t management.

The reason is simple. Tasks are often independent. In that case, there’s no one to coordinate with, beyond updating the person running the status board. Even when there is a take that needs coordination, that coordination is already happening, just not at that place.

Or in other words, people that get the most out of these rituals simultaneously overestimate the average degree of connections in the social network, and underestimate the amount of communication that happens outside of their immediate view. Call it a bias in a local a hub in a network.