Detailed Notes
Welcome to Episode 9 of the Building Better Developers podcast, Season 23. Hosts Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche explore the crucial habit of meeting preparation. This season focuses on building better habits as developers. In this episode, they explain how solid meeting prep can streamline projects and reduce stress.
*Episode Challenge: Pre-Meeting Prep and Note-Taking*
Rob issues a "meeting prep challenge" for the week to reinforce these practices. He suggests taking at least five minutes before your next meeting for preparation. Write down the date, primary topic, and any anticipated discussion points. During the meeting, continue taking notes. Once the meeting ends, outline the key takeaways. Even a brief summary will help track action items. This approach makes your meetings feel more organized and intentional.
Read more: https://develpreneur.com/meeting-prep-for-developers-simple-habits-to-enhance-focus-and-reduce-stress/
*Stay Connected: Join the Developreneur Community*
We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.
*Additional Resources*
* A Mistake In Choosing A Major – Prepare For Meetings (https://develpreneur.com/a-mistake-in-choosing-a-major-prepare-for-meetings/) * Should Your Team Adopt No-Meeting Weeks? (https://develpreneur.com/should-your-team-adopt-no-meeting-week/) * The Benefits of Status Meetings and Stand-Ups (https://develpreneur.com/the-benefits-of-status-meetings-and-stand-ups/) * Three Suggestions For Better Meetings (https://develpreneur.com/three-suggestions-for-better-meetings/)
*Follow-us on:*
* https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g/featured * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://twitter.com/develpreneur * http://linkedin.com/develpreneur
Transcript Text
[Music] hey there we go I hit I hit record I hit before he even turned his camera back on so this episode I think we decided what was the other thing meeting prep I think is what we figured we would probably do for this one and uh so we don't have to do a lot of Preamble this time around we will Dive Right into this when I go a little three well hello and welcome back we are continuing our season of building better habits we are building better developers we are develop or I am Rob Broadhead I'm one of the founders of develop nor also a founder of RB Consulting where we take all of your technology that's out there and yes you probably have more than you think you do we help you take a look at your business how that technology can help you how it can either also hurt you so where do you need to like trim the fat where do you maybe need to upgrade something where do you need to integrate automate or simplify and just make your life better overall as far as your technology choices are concerned making better technology choices as it were good thing bad thing uh let's see well let me go back bad thing which is related to actually the challenge we'll talk about is that I will throw out here for those of you that are on the podcast I did not add a challenge at the end of the last episode now that may get edited somewhere along the way but maybe not so the challenge is to go out there because it was a it was one of these where it's like hey let's go get some exercise and my challenge I'll be I'll keep it very simple three times a day go out Take 5 minutes do a walk doesn't matter when doesn't matter where during your workday this doesn't mean like you get up and you walk to brush your teeth and then you walk to your bed at the end of the night I'm talking like at work take those breaks go ahead and get yourself a little bit of you know get the blood flowing so bad thing was I forgot about that good thing is is I'm in one of these Seasons that like every time you turn around there's some there's like another customer that's coming with a cool project it's not just that it's like hey there's more work coming there's some stuff it's like this is going to be really fun to work on I'm really looking forward to helping you out with this sometimes it's big sometimes it's very small but that is always a good thing challenge wise uh as I mentioned I'm really liking the Pomodoro thing it's like I haven't I'd gotten away from it for several years and I think it's always because I tried to do you know six or eight in a day uh even doing four or five but I think keeping it down I'm keeping the number two and it seems to be like a magic number I may be able to squeeze it up to three but it's really good that I can do that and I can work it in within uh within meeting schedules and and travel and all this kinds of other stuff so really working well for me the to-do list getting back to i' I've done lists forever but getting back to a little bit more of that focus of having prioritized stuff and not has helped quite a bit from an exercise point of view uh this is something I've gotten uh that sort of got us to that topic it is it has helped me quite a bit actually I've lost some weight I don't know that it's because of that but getting up you know roughly once an hour maybe once every hour and a half or something like that and just taking five minutes to just walk around a little bit just stand around a little bit do something that's not sitting there uh years ago I would spend five to 10 minutes and work on a couple of ballroom dance moves because that was just something I could do and it got me moving in the blood flow so whatever you want to do whether it's jumping jacks or whatever I highly recommend it I also highly recommend that you pay attention to Michael who is about to introduce himself because there will be a test afterwards hey everyone my name is Michael molash I'm one of the co-founders at developer nerb building better developers I'm also the founder of Envision QA where we help small to midsize businesses clinicians nurses kind of review their software stack figure out what technologies they're using uh what processes that they need to have automated and basically see if the software that they're currently using works for them or or find the solution that really meets their needs if it's anything from like an EMR to a software assessment or even just making sure that the software Works reach out to Envision QA we're there to help you good and bad good I've gone a week without any more problems with the house so hey good check mark there no more water bills well excessive water bills uh bad still having some um issues here and there with personal health issues in the family but other than that um we're still trying to figure out what's going on there with the challenges so lists uh I've been working on making sure I have my list every day I've actually kind of dusted off my jira my personal jir and I've actually started using that to kind of organize some Pro bigger projects and bigger tasks I'm working on um we haven't really gotten into too much scrum but I've kind of use the Pomodoro Technique a little bit more with agile to try and streamline things a little bit within some projects I'm working on it's really reduce my stress level and kind of sticking to that Pomodoro and the walking that we talked about last episode you know exercise weather's actually improved right now we're not really cold yet weather's actually nice so getting out walking around change of scenery has actually given me more of a positive attitude and kind of reset me so I can actually be be more enthusiastic about sitting down and working on the next problem so speaking of that kind of stuff this episode I want to talk about meeting prep uh it's a little bit prep in general but it's really more specifically about meeting prep because this is something that I think we run into as a uh an issue far too often particularly in the development world and we all do it so I'm not I am not going to tell you that I am perfect at this in any way form or fashion uh but these are some things I have learned the challenge is if we're lucky uh we won't have as many challenges because we will have like a meeting at the beginning of the day and maybe a meeting at the end of the day or something like that however usually they are interspersed with some of the other work that we're doing and this goes to some of the things we've talked about before it can be very difficult to change gears mentally and go from being deep into coding and then talk about uh the even the same project talking about design or talking about you know a different area of the application or heaven forbid which does happen way too often a completely different project a completely different tact uh it could be stuff especially if you get as you get more senior where it's like you're deep into coding and now suddenly you're talking about I don't know HR issues about some of the you know the team or you're talking about uh project planning as far as like times and resource scheduling and stuff like that or if you're home home it can be stuff where it's like you're sitting there working and then you take a lunch break and you have a I don't know call with your attorney to plan for your will or you've got to go call to like Chase down a bill or something like that where it's like those changes can be very difficult and now things like a phone call give us a little bit of time because we have to grab the number and stuff like that but if it's a scheduled meeting then we have a you know we've got some issues there because we have to sometimes physically get to wherever we are uh however it's probably just as demanding and Troublesome and far more perilous to have to like fire up Zoom or something like that if you've got a some sort of a virtual meeting but more importantly the thing is is if we're going into a meeting is to go into it so that we can we don't have to like just slam it hit the ground running and just go we we do have those couple of minutes that you can like you know you can socialize and you can be nice and you can sort of like get to know something about the people that you work with I talk to I'm telling this to myself because I never do that so this is like if you ever have a meeting with me you'll realize that I'm just like Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam get in get out done so don't do as I do do as I'm hoping that I eventually do in this case but what you do want to do is you you're going to get in and there's that that everybody's Gathering and they're finding their seat and that kind of stuff or in a zoom call it's like you're waiting for a few people to come in late and things like that but within a very short period of time you're going to be stepping into the meeting now if it's run well there's an agenda there's an item it's like we're going to talk about this we're going to talk about that we all know especially if it's a meeting that uh has run by somebody they sent you the agenda or you have an idea of what the topic is going to be if you do if they have spent the time to give you an agenda to let you know what the topic is going to be if it's something that you have any idea what it's about you need to spend a few minutes before the meeting so like if it's a 9:00 meeting let's say at 8:50 you need to stop and then you need to start thinking about that meeting maybe make a couple of notes change your mindset think about what is it that needs to come out of this what are your goals what as far as like is there something you need to learn is there something that you need to pass on because it could be a status it could be uh general information gathering there's so many reasons that we can have a meeting but the thing is we want to be able to step into it with an attitude of like okay I'm at this meeting I'm respecting the time of the people that are in it with me and that means that I am trying to be on time as much as possible and yes I know meetings run late and we have those problems which that'll be an advance that'll be like bonus points in a little bit I'll talk to you about that but get into that meeting pay attention set the phone down and stuff like that like if you're going to go in a meeting and you're going to sit there and check mail the whole time find a way out of that meeting because if you're not if you're if you're just there to check mail or something like that or you're just there to fill a put a butt in a seat then find a way spend the effort to get out of it because there's no sense in you doing that likewise if you're a developer and you're getting pulled into a meeting and you've got an issue uh that you know something that you're tackling particularly if it's like a production issue or something like that beg out say hey I'm sorry I've got something that I've got to do ideally don't do it at the last second if you know it's coming or something like that say Hey I'm not goingon to be able to get it let's move it let's reschedule it that kind of stuff if somebody says no Then you know there's sometimes you're going to be forced into a meeting that you really just can't avoid then do your best anyways and then try to use whatever information you can there to feed being able to get out of the next one for example saying hey look we talked about a b and c last time all of this I could have gotten from that person down the street that was in the meeting and so I'm just going to get it from them because then I we don't have to double up find a way to get out of the ones that you really aren't there for you don't need to be in and be present in the ones that you are make sure that you're there that you're paying attention that you're following the agenda and that you're helping uh move it forward and you're not in a situation where you're meeting uh one of the other things you're not like a person that's like struggling through a whole bunch of stuff that's not on the agenda because as a developer we can get into little we can go down rabbit Trails all day long and we need to do our best while obviously the person running it should help us and say hey table that not part of the agenda but we can help ourselves and say hey I'm realizing this is not on topic why don't I talk to whoever it is or can we schedule a followup or something along those lines um I think I'm gonna go ahead and this point because I'm gonna come back and talk a little bit more specific about the challenge next so I'm gonna throw the meeting Talking Stick over to Michael for now thanks Rob so I liked how you introduced the the meeting prep and talk through all those points I kind of want to talk about the opposite of that if you do not go into a meeting prepared or you have been in these meetings so if you don't do what Rob suggest you're probably running into these meetings where you're having meetings about meetings where people essentially come into a meeting they aren't prepared they kind of flounder through the meeting and next thing you know you have another meeting about that meeting and then you essentially go through more prep on that and then another mean if you take the time put the effort in before make sure everyone that comes in closes their laptops turns off their phones focuses on the meeting the meeting is going to go smoothly the other thing with meeting prep isn't necessarily just preparing for the meeting but have someone take notes of the meeting that way those that aren't paying attention or those that can't make it or those that just don't understand or have very limited um attention spans will go out of the meeting forget what you said and next thing you know you have another meeting and you're repeating yourself again to a different group or the same group being prepared isn't just preparing the material it's also making sure that the people present in the meeting are attentive are focused on the topic and are there to discuss the topic if they don't know why they're there they probably either don't need to be there or there wasn't enough prep to get them there and you're going to spend more time in that meeting essentially doing the prep and then run out of time and have to go have yet another meeting um yam is one of the biggest deterrence in our careers and with digital I find it's even worse because there are so many times where I'm in a meeting and I watch my manager not paying attention you can see him on camera he's looking at a message and next you know I'm what did you say oh uh what what you can easily tell in digital meetings who's not present who's not there and it's worse when you don't turn on the camera so one additional thing I'll throw out before I give it back to you is if you have to have virtual meetings if you can try to encourage people to turn that camera on seeing people seeing them be attentative and if that camera has to be on they tend to pay more attention because they know people are looking at them having the camera off typically you'll see there's more distractions more less interactive in a meeting you may see people less talkative or less engaged so if you want to kind of spruce things up get the camera on make sure you get those agendas out before the meetings make sure you take the notes and then I don't want to say necessarily call out the Bad actors in a meeting but try to encourage people to turn off their messages like at the start of our uh podcast I Ure that Rob has turned off his BP little um reminder thing do that going into a meeting not only that use the Pomodoro don't schedule your meetings in our blocks if you have another meeting right after that make sure you give yourself some time try to follow the agenda and try to give people time for Q&A that doesn't run over so I'll pass it back to you so I think this takes us to the an approach that I actually have somewhat done over the years but haven't actually done it so I I was thinking about this as a challenge sort of to myself and so I'm throwing this out to all of us we have seen uh meeting agendas I'm sure you can go out and you know word or Pages or whatever and you'll see like all these little templates for how to do meeting agendas or if you've got a you know the old uh Franklin planner or something like that you've got all of those out there you also have summaries and I think what something that may help us and so this is your challenge in the next week before you get into a meeting just take at least you know probably no more than 10 but at least five minutes before the meeting open up a notebook not a electronic notebook like pencil and paper and at the very least like put a date a topic and what are like just two or three things that you think are going to be discussed if there's only one thing then put the one thing but the goal is you walk in there with a sheet of paper somehow that's got a little bit of writing on it about the the meeting and then it's sort of like a follow into this challenge is add to that during the meeting even if it is just we did one two three even if it is you know I need to remind Michael that he needs a haircut today or something like it could be something try to stay on topic obviously to the meeting but the goal is to take no is to go in there with the idea that you're going to take notes even if you sit down with a pad of paper and a pencil or a pen and you don't write down a single note I have found that just doing that does help me focus more because I'm like I'm here to pay attention I'm here to pay attention to the meeting not to pay attention to my phone or something else does that mean I never use my phone no but it does help so it's like let's try to like baby step our way out of this and then at the end of it it when you get out of it the the wrap up to the challenge is just write a little summary is there like for example action items is there something I need to do and that's usually the best thing for me if I'm really even in the middle of like a a requirements Gathering or something like that well requirements are too easy because I'm just taking notes all day long uh if it's a I'm trying to think but if it's just like a general status meeting that's a good one if it's General status meeting where I'm not really there to necessarily get anything specific one of the nice things is that I will have some action items that along the way I'll be like oh I need to check out this oh I need to do this oh I need to do that or hey I need to follow up on that give yourself something so that you you have that task that you have something to do other than simply stand there or sit there during the meeting and occasionally interact is that you've got something now that if you're not doing a pres presentation or you're not being presented to then this is going to help you I think you know focus a little bit what else will help you focus a little bit is sending us an email at info developer.com because we're going to help you build better habits you're going to say you know what I struggle with Focus while I'm I don't know watching horse racing and we're gonna say you know what we're going to do a habit Builder just on that now if one of you send it I'm G to be really impressed if we can pull something like that off but we'll figure there's a world of internets out there that we can figure out how to solve that problem you talk about niching down a lot that's what we can bring to the table that big said you can also bring to the table your opinions wherever you want to whether it is through whatever your podcasting uh your podcatcher application is you can leave us feedback there and comments you can reach out to us on our comment for contact us form on developer.com we are out there on XD develop andur there's a Facebook page there is uh YouTube you can go out and see us on develop anur there we're just all over the place so you you just like yell out loud develop anur and then just follow it up with a message may not get to us but it might it depends on where you're at that being said we're going to let you get back to it so go out there and have yourself a great day a great week and we will talk to you next time bonus material which this time is not the challenge for the day so the bonus I would like to throw out this time is so this episode was talk about meeting prep one of the things in addition to meeting prep is don't schedule a meeting to discuss what you need for another meeting use communication tools like slack teams email pick up the phone make a quick phone call talk to your team or have quick back and forth conversations prep to prepare the information you actually need for the real meeting that is meeting prep for a meeting don't go into a meeting then say okay so what is everyone's ideas on X you could have gone done that as your prep then you come into the me okay I you guys had some ideas on this so let's flush out those ideas so you come in with an agenda you don't come in with just talking points that lead into an agenda so just be a little forward thinking and be cautious about scheduling meetings make sure the meetings make sense make sure that they essentially are necessary you know I've seen some great commercials from grammarly where they use AI to quickly get out of a last minute meeting at 5:00 you know these are just some things to help you become better at planning and become a better developer I think my the bonus material is I cannot emphasize enough the value of coming into a meeting with a purpose with an agenda even if they're with your own personal agenda as far as what am I going to get out of this what am I bringing to this or what am I going to get out of it or both and even when it is in a presentation point of view for example uh I've done several of these and these are so they're near and dear to my heart recently would be like code review meetings if you are the reviewer now if you're the code reviewee it's like you should have a plan obviously like here's what I did and here's the code and blah blah blah if you're coming in to review code then you should have some questions like take a look at their code before hand or take a look at the project they're working on or whatever it is so that you have a little bit of some ideas about what's going on and come in with some specific questions or specific goals so it could be things like hey you solved this problem can you show me the code where you did that or what was your thought processes around it or where could I find documentation on it things like that this is where you get a bonus because if you prepare for the meeting and you're for example saying hey I'm going to go look at the documentation of this code so I can see if I have good questions and there's no documentation there's your first question like where the heck do I find out more about this thing that you supposed to be showing off to me things like that is even if it's it doesn't have to be much just one or two goals for the meeting are going to help you out now there are going to be times where it's going to be very much it's going to be a struggle but in those cases that's where you may question there's two things you can either say I probably don't need to be here and question that or you can look at it and say okay why am I here obviously I missed something and so that should be going in then that should almost be your goal is like I need to figure out what I can learn out of this what can I do to make this time valuable as opposed to just writing it off and saying you know what this is a bad meeting I don't want anything to do with it even if it's a bad meeting because if you can find a way to take bad meetings and get something out of them I guarantee it will help you become a better developer because you will be more productive you will find ways to get out of meetings because you won't have meetings about meetings and you won't have meetings where people didn't catch everything and then there weren't the right follow-ups or there's a follow-up because three people missed it because you'll say no wait I have a summary I was paying attention here's the things that they need to know and you can save yourself from meetings trust me it it feels like an impossible thing to do particularly if you're in the in like a big huge organization or something like that but it's not and it will pay dividends also paying dividends but not in a real sense just in the virtual sense of uh developer money we'll call it uh and notice I had oh yeah you guys can see me so I have my I have my quotes air quotes up so we're okay with that one it won't pay dividends for you to come out there and show us give us some feedback just let us know what do you think what do you like what don't you like what what are some habits that you've developed and what are some habits that you would like us to talk about or where are some where some areas where maybe you have bad habits that you would help like us to talk about maybe correct those bad habits or creating good habits that offset the bad habits which is something we'll have to think about maybe we'll have a like an anti-ab episode or two where it's like these are things you should not turn into habits that being said I'm going to try to make a habit of not blowing like running off at the mouth as much as I have good luck to me on that one but for you go out you have yourself a great day great week we will talk to you next time around [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
hey there we go I hit I hit record I hit
before he even turned his camera back on
so this
episode I think we decided what was the
other thing meeting prep I think is what
we figured we would probably do for this
one and uh so we don't have to do a lot
of Preamble this time around we will
Dive Right into this when I go a little
three well hello and welcome back we are
continuing our season of building better
habits we are building better developers
we are develop or I am Rob Broadhead I'm
one of the founders of develop nor also
a founder of RB Consulting where we take
all of your technology that's out there
and yes you probably have more than you
think you do we help you take a look at
your business how that technology can
help you how it can either also hurt you
so where do you need to like trim the
fat where do you maybe need to upgrade
something where do you need to integrate
automate or simplify and just make your
life better overall as far as your
technology choices are concerned making
better technology choices as it were
good thing bad thing uh let's see well
let me go back bad thing which is
related to actually the challenge we'll
talk about is that I will throw out here
for those of you that are on the podcast
I did not add a challenge at the end of
the last episode now that may get edited
somewhere along the way but maybe not so
the challenge is to go out there because
it was a it was one of these where it's
like hey let's go get some exercise and
my challenge I'll be I'll keep it very
simple three times a day go out Take 5
minutes do a walk doesn't matter when
doesn't matter where during your workday
this doesn't mean like you get up and
you walk to brush your teeth and then
you walk to your bed at the end of the
night I'm talking like at work take
those breaks go ahead and get yourself a
little bit of you know get the blood
flowing so bad thing was I forgot about
that good thing
is is I'm in one of these Seasons that
like every time you turn around there's
some there's like another customer
that's coming with a cool project it's
not just that it's like hey there's more
work coming there's some stuff it's like
this is going to be really fun to work
on I'm really looking forward to helping
you out with this sometimes it's big
sometimes it's very small but that is
always a good thing challenge wise uh as
I mentioned I'm really liking the
Pomodoro thing it's like I haven't I'd
gotten away from it for several years
and I think it's always because I tried
to do you know six or eight in a day uh
even doing four or five but I think
keeping it down I'm keeping the number
two and it seems to be like a magic
number I may be able to squeeze it up to
three but it's really good that I can do
that and I can work it in within uh
within meeting schedules and and travel
and all this kinds of other stuff so
really working well for me the to-do
list getting back to i' I've done lists
forever but getting back to a little bit
more of that focus of having prioritized
stuff and not has helped quite a bit
from an exercise point of view uh this
is something I've gotten uh that sort of
got us to that topic it is it has helped
me quite a bit actually I've lost some
weight I don't know that it's because of
that but getting up you know roughly
once an hour maybe once every hour and a
half or something like that and just
taking five minutes to just walk around
a little bit just stand around a little
bit do something that's not sitting
there uh years ago I would spend five to
10 minutes and work on a couple of
ballroom dance moves because that was
just something I could do and it got me
moving in the blood flow so whatever you
want to do whether it's jumping jacks or
whatever I highly recommend it I also
highly recommend that you pay attention
to Michael who is about to introduce
himself because there will be a test
afterwards hey everyone my name is
Michael molash I'm one of the
co-founders at developer nerb building
better developers I'm also the founder
of Envision QA where we help small to
midsize businesses clinicians nurses
kind of review their software stack
figure out what technologies they're
using uh what processes that they need
to have automated and basically see if
the software that they're currently
using works for them or or find the
solution that really meets their needs
if it's anything from like an EMR to a
software assessment or even just making
sure that the software Works reach out
to Envision QA we're there to help you
good and bad good I've gone a week
without any more problems with the house
so hey good check mark there no more
water bills well excessive water bills
uh
bad still having some um issues here and
there with personal health issues in the
family but other than that um we're
still trying to figure out what's going
on there with the challenges so lists uh
I've been working on making sure I have
my list every day I've actually kind of
dusted off my jira my personal jir and
I've actually started using that to kind
of organize some Pro bigger projects and
bigger tasks I'm working on um we
haven't really gotten into too much
scrum but I've kind of use the Pomodoro
Technique a little bit more with agile
to try and streamline things a little
bit within some projects I'm working on
it's really reduce my stress level and
kind of sticking to that Pomodoro and
the walking that we talked about last
episode you know
exercise weather's actually improved
right now we're not really cold yet
weather's actually nice so getting out
walking around change of scenery has
actually given me more of a positive
attitude and kind of reset me so I can
actually be be more enthusiastic about
sitting down and working on the next
problem so speaking of that kind of
stuff this episode I want to talk about
meeting prep uh it's a little bit prep
in general but it's really more
specifically about meeting prep because
this is something that I think we run
into as a uh an issue far too often
particularly in the development world
and we all do it so I'm not I am not
going to tell you that I am perfect at
this in any way form or fashion uh but
these are some things I have learned the
challenge is if we're lucky uh we won't
have as many challenges because we will
have like a meeting at the beginning of
the day and maybe a meeting at the end
of the day or something like that
however usually they are interspersed
with some of the other work that we're
doing and this goes to some of the
things we've talked about before it can
be very difficult to change gears
mentally and go from being deep into
coding and then talk about
uh the even the same project talking
about design or talking about you know a
different area of the application or
heaven forbid which does happen way too
often a completely different project a
completely different tact uh it could be
stuff especially if you get as you get
more senior where it's like you're deep
into coding and now suddenly you're
talking about I don't know HR issues
about some of the you know the team or
you're talking about uh project planning
as far as like times and resource
scheduling and stuff like that or if
you're home home it can be stuff where
it's like you're sitting there working
and then you take a lunch break and you
have a I don't know call with your
attorney to plan for your will or you've
got to go call to like Chase down a bill
or something like that where it's like
those changes can be very difficult and
now things like a phone call give us a
little bit of time because we have to
grab the number and stuff like that but
if it's a scheduled meeting then we have
a you know we've got some issues there
because we have to sometimes physically
get to wherever we are uh however it's
probably just as demanding and
Troublesome and far more perilous to
have to like fire up Zoom or something
like that if you've got a some sort of a
virtual meeting but more
importantly the thing is is if we're
going into a meeting is to go into it so
that we can we don't have to like just
slam it hit the ground running and just
go we we do have those couple of minutes
that you can like you know you can
socialize and you can be nice and you
can sort of like get to know something
about the people that you work with I
talk to I'm telling this to myself
because I never do that so this is like
if you ever have a meeting with me
you'll realize that I'm just like Bam
Bam Bam Bam Bam get in get out done so
don't do as I do do as I'm hoping that I
eventually do in this case but what you
do want to do is you you're going to get
in and there's that that everybody's
Gathering and they're finding their seat
and that kind of stuff or in a zoom call
it's like you're waiting for a few
people to come in late and things like
that but within a very short period of
time you're going to be stepping into
the meeting now if it's run well there's
an agenda there's an item it's like
we're going to talk about this we're
going to talk about that we all know
especially if it's a meeting that uh has
run by somebody they sent you the agenda
or you have an idea of what the topic is
going to
be if you do if they have spent the time
to give you an agenda to let you know
what the topic is going to be if it's
something that you have any idea what
it's about you need to spend a few
minutes before the meeting so like if
it's a 9:00 meeting let's say at 8:50
you need to stop and then you need to
start thinking about that meeting maybe
make a couple of notes change your
mindset think about what is it that
needs to come out of this what are your
goals what as far as like is there
something you need to learn is there
something that you need to pass on
because it could be a status it could be
uh general information gathering there's
so many reasons that we can have a
meeting but the thing is we want to be
able to step into it with an attitude of
like okay I'm at this meeting I'm
respecting the time of the people that
are in it with me and that means that I
am trying to be on time as much as
possible and yes I know meetings run
late and we have those problems which
that'll be an advance that'll be like
bonus points in a little bit I'll talk
to you about that but get into that
meeting pay attention set the phone down
and stuff like that like if you're going
to go in a meeting and you're going to
sit there and check mail the whole time
find a way out of that meeting because
if you're not if you're if you're just
there to check mail or something like
that or you're just there to fill a put
a butt in a seat then find a way spend
the effort to get out of it because
there's no sense in you doing that
likewise if you're a developer and
you're getting pulled into a meeting and
you've got an issue uh that you know
something that you're tackling
particularly if it's like a production
issue or something like that beg out say
hey I'm sorry I've got something that
I've got to do ideally don't do it at
the last second if you know it's coming
or something like that say Hey I'm not
goingon to be able to get it let's move
it let's reschedule it that kind of
stuff if somebody says no Then you know
there's sometimes you're going to be
forced into a meeting that you really
just can't avoid then do your best
anyways and then try to use whatever
information you can there to feed being
able to get out of the next one for
example saying hey look we talked about
a b and c last time all of this I could
have gotten from that person down the
street that was in the meeting and so
I'm just going to get it from them
because then I we don't have to double
up find a way to get out of the ones
that you really aren't there for you
don't need to be in and be present in
the ones that you are make sure that
you're there that you're paying
attention that you're following the
agenda and that you're helping uh move
it forward and you're not in a situation
where you're meeting uh one of the other
things you're not like a person that's
like struggling through a whole bunch of
stuff that's not on the agenda because
as a developer we can get into little we
can go down rabbit Trails all day long
and we need to do our best while
obviously the person running it should
help us and say hey table that not part
of the agenda but we can help ourselves
and say hey I'm realizing this is not on
topic why don't I talk to whoever it is
or can we schedule a followup or
something along those
lines um I think I'm gonna go ahead and
this point because I'm gonna come back
and talk a little bit more specific
about the challenge next so I'm gonna
throw the meeting Talking Stick over to
Michael for now thanks Rob so I liked
how you introduced the the meeting prep
and talk through all those points I kind
of want to talk about the opposite of
that if you do not go into a meeting
prepared or you have been in these
meetings so if you don't do what Rob
suggest you're probably running into
these meetings where you're having
meetings about meetings where people
essentially come into a meeting they
aren't prepared they kind of flounder
through the meeting and next thing you
know you have another meeting about that
meeting and then you essentially go
through more prep on that and then
another mean if you take the time put
the effort in before make sure everyone
that comes in closes their laptops turns
off their phones focuses on the
meeting the meeting is going to go
smoothly the other thing with meeting
prep isn't necessarily just preparing
for the meeting but have someone take
notes of the
meeting that way those that aren't
paying attention or those that can't
make it or those that just don't
understand or have very limited um
attention spans will go out of the
meeting forget what you said and next
thing you know you have another meeting
and you're repeating yourself
again to a different group or the same
group being prepared isn't just
preparing the material it's also making
sure that the people present in the
meeting are attentive are focused on the
topic and are there to discuss the topic
if they don't know why they're there
they probably either don't need to be
there or there wasn't enough prep to get
them there
and you're going to spend more time in
that meeting essentially doing the prep
and then run out of time and have to go
have yet another
meeting um yam is one of the
biggest deterrence in our careers and
with digital I find it's even worse
because there are so many times where
I'm in a meeting and I watch my
manager not paying attention you can see
him on camera he's looking at a message
and next you know I'm what did you say
oh uh what what you can easily tell in
digital meetings who's not present who's
not there and it's worse when you don't
turn on the camera so one additional
thing I'll throw out before I give it
back to you is if you have to have
virtual
meetings if you can try to encourage
people to turn that camera on seeing
people seeing them be attentative and if
that camera has to be on
they tend to pay more attention because
they know people are looking at them
having the camera off typically you'll
see there's more distractions more less
interactive in a meeting you may see
people less talkative or less engaged so
if you want to kind of spruce things up
get the camera on make sure you get
those agendas out before the meetings
make sure you take the notes and then I
don't want to say necessarily call out
the Bad actors in a meeting but try to
encourage people to turn off their
messages like at the start of our uh
podcast I Ure that Rob has turned off
his BP little um reminder thing do that
going into a
meeting not only that use the Pomodoro
don't schedule your meetings in our
blocks if you have another meeting right
after that make sure you give yourself
some time try to follow the agenda and
try to give people time for Q&A that
doesn't run over
so I'll pass it back to you so I think
this takes us to the an approach that I
actually have somewhat done over the
years but haven't actually done it so I
I was thinking about this as a challenge
sort of to myself and so I'm throwing
this out to all of us we have seen uh
meeting agendas I'm sure you can go out
and you know word or Pages or whatever
and you'll see like all these little
templates for how to do meeting agendas
or if you've got a you know the old uh
Franklin planner or something like that
you've got all of those out there you
also have
summaries and I think what something
that may help us and so this is your
challenge in the next week before you
get into a meeting just take at least
you know probably no more than 10 but at
least five minutes before the meeting
open up a notebook not a electronic
notebook like pencil and
paper and at the very least like put a
date a topic and what are like just two
or three things that you think are going
to be discussed if there's only one
thing then put the one thing but the
goal is you walk in there with a sheet
of paper somehow that's got a little bit
of writing on it about the the meeting
and then it's sort of like a follow into
this challenge is add to that during the
meeting even if it is just we did one
two three even if it is you know I need
to remind Michael that he needs a
haircut today or something like it could
be
something try to stay on topic obviously
to the meeting but the goal is to take
no is to go in there with the idea that
you're going to take notes even if you
sit down with a pad of paper and a
pencil or a pen and you don't write down
a single
note I have found that just doing that
does help me focus more because I'm like
I'm here to pay attention I'm here to
pay attention to the meeting not to pay
attention to my phone or something else
does that mean I never use my phone no
but it does help so it's like let's try
to like baby step our way out of this
and then at the end of it it when you
get out of it the the wrap up to the
challenge is just write a little summary
is there like for example action items
is there something I need to do and
that's usually the best thing for me if
I'm
really even in the middle of like a a
requirements Gathering or something like
that well requirements are too easy
because I'm just taking notes all day
long uh if it's a I'm trying to think
but if it's just like a general status
meeting that's a good one if it's
General status meeting where I'm not
really there to necessarily get anything
specific one of the nice things is that
I will have some action items that along
the way I'll be like oh I need to check
out this oh I need to do this oh I need
to do that or hey I need to follow up on
that give yourself something so that you
you have that task that you have
something to do other than simply stand
there or sit there during the meeting
and occasionally interact is that you've
got something now that if you're not
doing a pres presentation or you're not
being presented to then this is going to
help you I think you know focus a little
bit what else will help you focus a
little bit is sending us an email at
info developer.com
because we're going to help you build
better habits you're going to say you
know what I struggle with Focus while
I'm I don't know watching horse racing
and we're gonna say you know what we're
going to do a habit Builder just on that
now if one of you send it I'm G to be
really impressed if we can pull
something like that off but we'll figure
there's a world of internets out there
that we can figure out how to solve that
problem you talk about niching down a
lot that's what we can bring to the
table that big said you can also bring
to the table your opinions wherever you
want to whether it is through whatever
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application is you can leave us feedback
there and comments you can reach out to
us on our comment for contact us form on
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develop andur there's a Facebook page
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see us on develop anur there we're just
all over the place so you you just like
yell out loud develop anur and then just
follow it up with a message may not get
to us but it might it depends on where
you're at that being said we're going to
let you get back to it so go out there
and have yourself a great day a great
week and we will talk to you next time
bonus material which this time is not
the challenge for the
day so the bonus I would like to throw
out this time
is so this episode was talk about
meeting prep one of the things in
addition to meeting prep is don't
schedule a meeting to discuss what you
need for another meeting use
communication tools like slack teams
email pick up the phone make a quick
phone call talk to your team or have
quick back and forth conversations prep
to prepare the information you actually
need for the real meeting that is
meeting
prep for a meeting don't go into a
meeting then say okay so what is
everyone's ideas on X you could have
gone done that as your prep then you
come into the me okay I you guys had
some ideas on this so let's flush out
those ideas so you come in with an
agenda you don't come in with just
talking points that lead into an agenda
so just be a little forward thinking and
be cautious about scheduling meetings
make sure the meetings make sense make
sure that they essentially are necessary
you know I've seen some great
commercials from grammarly where they
use AI to quickly get out of a last
minute meeting at 5:00 you know these
are just some things to help
you become better at planning and become
a better
developer I think my the bonus material
is I cannot emphasize enough the value
of coming into a meeting with a purpose
with an agenda even if they're with your
own personal agenda as far as what am I
going to get out of this what am I
bringing to this or what am I going to
get out of it or both and even when it
is in a presentation point of view for
example uh I've done several of these
and these are so they're near and dear
to my heart recently would be like code
review
meetings if you are the reviewer now if
you're the code reviewee it's like you
should have a plan obviously like here's
what I did and here's the code and blah
blah blah if you're coming in to review
code then you should have some questions
like take a look at their code before
hand or take a look at the project
they're working on or whatever it is so
that you have a little bit of some ideas
about what's going on and come in with
some specific questions or specific
goals so it could be things like hey you
solved this problem can you show me the
code where you did that or what was your
thought processes around it or where
could I find documentation on it things
like that this is where you get a bonus
because if you prepare for the meeting
and you're for example saying hey I'm
going to go look at the documentation of
this code so I can see if I have good
questions and there's no documentation
there's your first question like where
the heck do I find out more about this
thing that you supposed to be showing
off to me things like that is even if
it's it doesn't have to be much just one
or two goals for the meeting are going
to help you out now there are going to
be times where it's going to be very
much it's going to be a struggle but in
those cases that's where you may
question there's two things you can
either say I probably don't need to be
here and question that or you can look
at it and say okay why am I here
obviously I missed something and so that
should be going in then that should
almost be your goal is like I need to
figure out what I can learn out of this
what can I do to make this time valuable
as opposed to just writing it off and
saying you know what this is a bad
meeting I don't want anything to do with
it even if it's a bad meeting because if
you can find a way to take bad meetings
and get something out of them I
guarantee it will help you become a
better developer because you will be
more productive you will find ways to
get out of meetings because you won't
have meetings about meetings and you
won't have meetings where people didn't
catch everything and then there weren't
the right follow-ups or there's a
follow-up because three people missed it
because you'll say no wait I have a
summary I was paying attention here's
the things that they need to know and
you can save yourself from meetings
trust me it it feels like an impossible
thing to do particularly if you're in
the in like a big huge organization or
something like that but it's not and it
will pay
dividends also paying dividends but not
in a real sense just in the virtual
sense of uh developer money we'll call
it uh and notice I had oh yeah you guys
can see me so I have my I have my quotes
air quotes up so we're okay with that
one it won't pay dividends for you to
come out there and show us give us some
feedback just let us know what do you
think what do you like what don't you
like what what are some habits that
you've developed and what are some
habits that you would like us to talk
about or where are some where some areas
where maybe you have bad habits that you
would help like us to talk about maybe
correct those bad habits or creating
good habits that offset the bad habits
which is something we'll have to think
about maybe we'll have a like an anti-ab
episode or two where it's like these are
things you should not turn into habits
that being said I'm going to try to make
a habit of not blowing like running off
at the mouth as much as I have good luck
to me on that one but for you go out you
have yourself a great day great week we
will talk to you next time around
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