[crazygringo]

I dunno... I feel like if I'm totally honest, there's a good chance I would wind up just ignoring 90% of those e-mails, or at least not reading them carefully enough.

For me, I feel like the benefit of a stand-up is exactly that it forces everyone to pay attention and meet for 5 min, not just so that everything important gets communicated, but that everyone knows everyone else heard it. And people can ask important questions and know everyone else heard the concern and answer as well.

[chris_mahan]

When I notice that people have a habit of ignoring my emails, I instant-message them after I send the email. If that doesn't work, I call them. If that doesn't work I walk over to their desk. If they're not at their desk, or in another building, I email their boss and ask whether the person is taking a day off.

Believe it or not, people stopped ignoring my emails.

[skrebbel]

Surprise! You're in 615 Dilbert comics!

[chris_mahan]

I totally know!

[chris_mahan]

I give people ample time to respond to email. Sometimes several days. This escalation only happens to people who ignore emails.

If you're going to ignore emails at work, be prepared for the consequences.

If you don't want me to email you, tell me where else to go for the info. If you want to hoard knowledge, and you don't want to answer emails, you're gonna get the escalation.

[reinhardt]

Good lord I hope this is sarcasm.

[mixmastamyk]

He doesn't say this all happens in a thirty minute time frame... it could be over the course of a week.

[donmcc]

Why don't you just talk to them face-to-face in the first place?

[chris_mahan]

I send and receive dozens of emails each day. If I had to face-to-face, I would have no time for actual work. Also, probably half of the people I email aren't in the same building, but require driving 20 minutes at least. Some are on the other side of the US. Hard to do face-to-face then!

[benihana]

I'm really glad I don't work with you.

[derefr]

> but that everyone knows everyone else heard it.

How about simply having a company policy that everyone should MVCC their decisions based on received email "transactions"? I.e., if someone sends out an email, then everyone else MUST (in the RFC sense of MUST) read it and digest it before making any new decisions. It still operates asynchronously--you can finish whatever you were head-down working on before checking your email--but you have to check it before you move on to whatever comes after that.

Or, in more cynical terms: fire everyone who ignores these emails until the problem corrects itself.

[reinhardt]

The problem to correct itself is all this bullshit TPS reporting hidden behind fancy new buzzwords and "methodologies".

My rule is: if something affects my work, put it in my TODO list. If I am a Devops engineer, reading emails or standing up in a circle (jerk) pretending to listen carefully and understand what designer X, mobile developer Y and product manager Z did the day before or plan to do today is a waste of my time and theirs.

[ratherbefuddled]

Why are you in a stand up with people whose work doesn't affect yours? That's fundamentally not right. I think you're ascribing problems to daily standups that are more to do with your specific organisation.

[anthonyb]

No it's not. Because frequently, the things which are blocking you could be easily fixed by them changing something simple in their workflow, and vice versa.

Even just a heads up that something important is coming down the line can save you hours or days of work "Oh, I thought you were cc'ed in on that email..."

[anthonyb]

Now you have 50 status emails and 100 responses to those emails (and 50 responses to those responses...) that you MUST!!1! read and digest each day.

Plus other people have already made (bad) decisions and started working on stuff that (negatively) affects you because you were busy "head-down working".

These are the problems that stand ups are supposed to help fix.

[derefr]

It sounds like the problem there is that you have a "team" with 50 people on it. You don't need to know things that don't affect you; if everything affects you, your organization doesn't know how to compartmentalize its architecture.

[anthonyb]

Well, sure - every team starts with 10 people or so, but in pathological organisations you'll get a lot more people who need to give status reports, particularly around crunch time...

[donmcc]

For me, the point of a standup meeting is to spark conversations; the status information everyone reports is really secondary and a convenient excuse to get everyone face-to-face and talking. And this type of interaction happens much more easily when everyone is in the same location at the same time.

[philwelch]

Yes, and those are exactly the rambling 30 minute standups everyone hates.

[donmcc]

I agree, and if your standups are longer then ten minutes, you're doing it wrong. You need to (politely) stop the rambling and suggest that interested parties talk after the standup. The idea is to spark conversations, not waste everyone's time.