white-turtle

web-space of - vishal basra

turtles and code!


Meetings!

An Engineer’s articulated meeting guide



{
	"Meeting Preparation": {
		"Before Meeting": {
			"Need to know what you want to convey clearly during the meeting."
			"Have an agenda"
			"Depends on criticality (10 min to 1 hr) to think about the meeting and prepare yourself mentally."
		},
		"Skill": {

		},
		"Communication":{
			"Precise"
			"Clear"
			"Unequivocal"
			"Eloquent"
			"Non-adamant"
			"Modest"
			"Not-too-modest"

		},
		"General Knowledge / Presence of Mind": {
			"Express the project / agenda"
			"Also be able to talk about anything which stems out of it and hold your ground."

		},
		"Confidence":{
			"Know what you can do"
			"Ask for what you can do, appropriately" : "Don't ask for too little or too much"
			"Know what you cannot do"
			"Ask for help when needed"
			"Don't be overconfident"
			"Don't be under-confident"

		},
		"Project Specific Knowledge":{
			"Architecture":{
				"Documentation":{
					"Accessible" : "Every-body should be able to access it. Send it to participants before the meeting.",
					"Simple": "It should be simple to understand. Rule of Thumb - Simple enough for a new participant to understand clearly.",
					"Easy to read": "Well-written, diagrams, figures, labels, headers, paragraphs, fonts should all make it an 'easy read'"
				},
				"Design Approach":{
					"Documentation":{
						"Present?" : "Is the Design Approach well-documented?"
					},
					"Simplicity": "The idea of the project whether new or an existing one should be easy to understand",
					"Reason": "Why are we doing this? This needs to be the first fact stated and explained if not done already.",
					"Impact": "What will be the impact of this project?",
					"Outcome": "What are the advantages or disadvantages of doing something this way or that way.",
					"Future proof-ness": "Is the project future-proof, modern, will we have to do 'something new' in another two years?",
					"Scalability" : "How scalable is the project?",
					"(High) Availability" :"Does the design incorporate this?",
					"Specific Constraints": "Do we care about certain specific things - like latency? ; Are they considered?"

				}

			},
			"Implementation":{
				"Documentation": {
					"Present?" : "Is the Design Approach well-documented?",
					"Scope": "Is the implementation documentation easy?",
					"Detailed" :"How granular is the implementation documentation - w.r.t. code",
					"Version Control" :"Is the implementation code version controlled?"
				},
				"Code":{
					"Quality"
					"Readability"
					"Stack" : "Is the stack for this project different from the org stack?",
					"Maintainability"
					"Workflow"
					"End-to-end scenario"
					"Does it work against non-ideal scenario?"
					"Testing?"
					"Logging?"
					"Monitoring?"
					"Alerting?"
					"Exception handling?"
					"Error handling?"
					"Automation?"
				}

			},
			"Nuances":{
				"Are there certain negative aspects that you know will come up (from certain people or otherwise)?": "Are they addressed?",
				"Are there certain positive aspects that you know will come up (from certain people or otherwise)?": "Are they emphasized?"

			}
		},
		"Feedback Ability":{
			"Negative Feedback" : "How well can you receive negative feedback. Rule of thumb - in long term there's nothing as 'negative feedback'",
			"Positive Feedback" : "Do you understand why was the feedback positive - because of the work or a person? Rule of thumb - There's nothing as 'positive feedback' either. It's just agreement.",
			"Golden Rule of Thumb" : "Don't really (for the long-term) perceive feedback as +ve or -ve ; Feedback may be +ve or -ve for the project, but never for you. Keep learning from it and it'll be what it is, just 'feedback' Ref: Waterfall model."

		}


	},
	"Meeting Analysis":{
		"After Meeting Time":{
			"Depends on criticality (10 min to 1 hr) to think about the meeting and ponder over what transpired."

		},
		"Meeting Results":{
			"Was the agenda discussed?"
			"Is the outcome favourable or non-favourable?"
			"If non-favourable : what should been done differently the next time."
			"What did you learn 'people-wise'"
			"What did you learn 'project/idea' wise"
			"Assess the train of thought of the participants."

		},
		"Positive Points Discussed?":{
			"List them"

		},
		"Negative Points Discussed?":{
			"List them"

		},
		"Next Steps?":{
			"There will ALWAYS be a next time."

		}
	}
}


vishal@white-turtle.org