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."
}
}
}