> Maybe this was caused by people not reading them, but I've always suspected that a lot of people just don't like writing, and/or aren't very good at it.
Writing an email tends is harder than having a meeting, because you (generally) need to understand the problem to talk about it. This is true of both providing information about the problem and for asking questions about it. Part of writing about something is taking the time to understand it.
It can easily take me 20-30 minutes to write an email about something. But, especially in the case of asking for more information about something, it _also_ results in me having a clearer understanding of the topic; because I needed to identify what questions to ask. However, me spending 30 minutes on writing that email means
- I understand the problem better (as noted), AND
- Multiple _other_ people don't spend 15 minutes in a meeting while I solidify my understanding enough to ask the right questions. And that saves a lot more time overall.
That being said, sometimes meetings are the right answer, because there's a gap somewhere and people just don't know what questions to ask; they need to get together and just talk about it.
Writing an email tends is harder than having a meeting, because you (generally) need to understand the problem to talk about it. This is true of both providing information about the problem and for asking questions about it. Part of writing about something is taking the time to understand it.
It can easily take me 20-30 minutes to write an email about something. But, especially in the case of asking for more information about something, it _also_ results in me having a clearer understanding of the topic; because I needed to identify what questions to ask. However, me spending 30 minutes on writing that email means
- I understand the problem better (as noted), AND
- Multiple _other_ people don't spend 15 minutes in a meeting while I solidify my understanding enough to ask the right questions. And that saves a lot more time overall.
That being said, sometimes meetings are the right answer, because there's a gap somewhere and people just don't know what questions to ask; they need to get together and just talk about it.