> For some problems? 15 minutes with a whiteboard. There’s no good e-replacement.
People say this, but FigJam or even Microsoft Whiteboard work fantastically for this if you've equipped your team with the right hardware. I often sit down with people and noodle through problems on an iPad (and for me at least the Pencil is required) with FigJam in a low-friction manner.
I really disagree. Figjam is mildly ok, though I suppose if my company had been willing to give the team better tools it might have worked better? I still think there’s something irreplaceable about standing around the board in person to discuss/draw. Even the hovering pencil/cursor stuff just doesn’t work as well, IMO, as standing there and pointing at things/connections.
I’m certainly not going to make my team move to my city and rent an office for those meetings, but getting together a few times a year can allow for solving some tough/intractable problems much more easily/efficiently.
> Figjam is mildly ok, though I suppose if my company had been willing to give the team better tools it might have worked better?
I think FigJam is pretty bad with a mouse and keyboard, honestly. It wasn't until I started using it with an iPad that it made sense to me and it wasn't until I got other people doing it that it was actually any good at all. It also suffers if you have the sort of group that needs a facilitator for these kinds of processes--I had a PM who had formerly been at Figma and their process for trying to get people to use it at the new job hurt me physically.
(The funny thing is, while I do like FigJam I don't like Figma at all; I am an Illustrator man and will be until I blow away like dust in the wind.)
> I’m certainly not going to make my team move to my city and rent an office for those meetings, but getting together a few times a year can allow for solving some tough/intractable problems much more easily/efficiently.
I agree with this, FWIW, but not for the problem-solving aspect at a whiteboard. I use it for the sticky, annoying people-y problems where you do lose something over a teleconference connection when dealing with most people. (Some folks I've worked with, like me, have an on-camera background and can project effectively over teleconferences; most can't.)
So the secret to working effectively is passive aggressive nonverbal cues and interrupting people frequently who may be busy doing something else and weren’t expecting an impromptu meeting?
Has the physical world discovered how to replay past conversations where important decisions were made? Has it become socially acceptable to have long silences of 5-10 minutes while people formulate thoughtful replies in a conversation?
I’ve literally never seen a meeting grind to a halt like that. Instead, meetings are full of half-baked ideas, and I sometimes notice show-stoppers hours later when it’s quiet.
Maybe not in the middle of a meeting but Amazon commonly has the first half of a meeting (I've experienced as long as 20 mins) to read a document by the host altogether silently before starting. People commonly would add comments during this time.
At google, doc reading is done before the meeting along with comments/replies, but during a design review, the host will go through each comment and then open a live discussion if needed.
Both of these formats allow for productive meetings but it does require a culture to support it and people to write down their thoughts ahead of the meeting and share it around.
those don't convey nonverbal communication, and they are so unstructured that they interrupt too frequently
there's something positive about setting time on the calendar and then sitting down with someone (or a group of people) to talk about a specific subject that we've all prepared for. yes, you can do that with Zoom, but then you miss the ability to speak simultaneously and the body language / nonverbal.
not everything should be a meeting, but not everything should be IM / phone calls either. being able to mix and match is what makes in-person somewhat positive (even if I personally prefer a hybrid model)
