An interesting Reddit thread had someone asking about effectively using standup meetings... But was that the real issue? Or are they looking for recognition or understanding the impact of their work?
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Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.
all right folks I'm just leaving CrossFit here um going to go to Reddit for a topic and I'm not running the insta 360 just cuz I got to run to Costco right after this and get into my wife's vehicle so uh topic is about well the person writing on Reddit is saying that they are struggling to communicate in meetings but then the specific example they give is around standups so um I wanted to talk about like standup meetings um sort of the idea behind them in my per perspective my opinion how to to do them effectively and um yeah how someone like this person can say do a better job because what they're describing is essentially they feel the way they said it is they feel invisible like no one's asking them about what they're doing but they're saying I have colleagues that are doing
similar things and people are asking about their status update so they're like I just feel invisible um one of the oh my wife's behind me I thought you already left um one of the uh comments someone was saying like hey like like why don't you talk to your manager about this is the advice I give right like why don't you talk to your manager about this kind of stuff in terms of expectations visibility and they said um I'm I'm not reading the message or the post directly but something along the lines of I'm afraid if I go to my manager and start start talking about this kind of thing they're essentially going to have higher and higher expectations of me and uh essentially they're describing like pressure in micromanagement will come from that so I just quickly read the person's reply to that and they
were like that sounds like you're pretty paranoid so um in context of this Reddit threat I think that there's probably a little bit more to dive into in terms of like self-esteem and other things for this individual um so I just wanted to to mention that because when I do videos like this and I'm talking about these very general topics um you know I'm trying to find maybe points I can bring up that might feel relatable to you CU if you're like yeah I wouldn't want to talk to my manager either for similar reasons I actually think that might be um probably a little bit not a smart move man I should have ran the insta 360 um I I feel like that's probably more of a personal thing for you um like if you're afraid of something and being paranoid that something's going to
happen uh I think there's probably something to work on internally um okay so let's kind of break it down right like what's the point of a standup meeting well generally when we do standup meetings they're meant to be very quick they're meant to uh highlight any like Milestones or if you're blocked and I feel like if people are like it almost never works this way unfortunately in my experience but if people are if everyone's making good progress everything's on track and there happens to not be like a milestone update a standup should be like Lightning Fast right like nothing to report making great progress and next like literally that fast but the reality is I think that when we dig into how these things generally go like sometimes people will say things like that and the reality is they've been stuck on something for like
a week and they haven't made any progress so what they're relaying to the team is like hey there's good progress me being good progress being made can't speak apparently but the reality is like there isn't there isn't any progress um so sometimes people are afraid to say these things so the intention is to talk about like a milestone uh you know something has become unblocked or you have become blocked these things are really important so that we can make adjustments right so if you get stuck on something you should be asking for help like raising awareness to it but I think um I don't I don't know exactly where it stems from and there could be many reasons for it but I think a lot of the time people are afraid of sharing updates like that they're afraid that like hey if I say that
I haven't made progress since yesterday people are going to think I'm dumb or I'm going to get fired because I didn't make progress or whatever else and um yeah maybe people have had bad uh speaking is not my forth day today people have had bad managers in the past they've had uh lousy teammates whatever it happens to be but um like I would try to not let that dictate your future because the reality is that is the intention of a standup it's very quick updates to make sure you're not blocked to make sure that you're progressing so um I would always recommend to people and I I spend more time with more Jun Engineers talking about this uh especially because like if they're new to new to the work environment say they're like early in career their all the other experience with projects might be
like stuff in school or stuff they built on the side and they may not really be familiar with like other stakeholders um that need to have awareness of their of their projects like they have teammates that might have uh changes that are blocked by by their deliverables there might be other teams waiting there might be Milestones that we have to land things so that we can ship it to customers so a lot of this can be very new this Hummer has the smallest wheels on a Hummer I've ever seen in my life it looks like a like a toy I maybe this is just how Hummers look I don't have my my insta 360 but can you see that I don't know at the front maybe not not anyway um I should have had my camera going it just looks ridiculous but yeah I have
to coach these these individuals to remind them like look like I'm not I'm not going to get mad at you if you're behind on something right like if you I walk them through a hypothetical scenario of like let's let's imagine that we talked about when we're expecting your work to get done and we said it's going to take two weeks it's going to be by the end of let's say this Sprint boundary that we've set up so you're saying it's going to take two weeks we kind of agree to that like that's the commitment and you're you know a couple days into it and you're like I really haven't even started and I would have expected that I would have been further but I've just been stuck and then like a week goes by and you're like man like I am not halfway through this
work I'm barely scratching the surface and then a week and a half right you're like okay like I'm starting on this but like it's there's no way it's going to finish in by the end of this Sprint and then the Sprint end comes and it's like okay like what's the status and it's like I'm not even halfway like if we think about the um the outcome of this right like as as a stakeholder for this work would I rather know that at the end after 2 weeks when the only thing I can do is say oh like I guess we missed the Target or or what I rather know as soon as possible because I'm there to try and help you my wife's passing me cuz these other cars are driving slow um or would I rather know sooner to support you and try to
make adjustments like if you told me one week in like hey man like I'm I'm barely even getting started on this it depending on what this project is like the importance of it the severity what other people are working on part of my job is to make sure that I can help enable you to be successful right so I might say hey look maybe uh maybe you should go talk to this person maybe I can bring in someone else to help you right like there's so many things we can do as a team to try and make this work progress so I remind people like the sooner you tell me that things are off course the sooner we can make adjustments there's going to be so many things that are outside of your control so many things right now if we do this every single
Sprint and when we kind of understand what's going on it's like not because of external factors it's just because you're slacking off or like you didn't actually want to do your work or I don't know you're not showing up to work or something different story but like I don't I don't lead with that that's not my that's not the primary thing that I expect is happening so I just don't that's not where my head goes it's just like how do I help you right so this is the intention behind sharing status updates and using standup meetings to be able to share that really quick update to make sure if if someone needs help we can get that there like get that to them sorry um now I want to kind of double back on kind of how this person was asking about this because as
I'm talking through this you might say yes Nick like no we know how stand up meetings are supposed to work we get it for some of you that might have been helpful and you're like okay that framing helps like great um but the way that this person asks about this is like it sounds like they're very um self-conscious that they're not being uh their work isn't being recognized and to me that's a very different um I I believe it's a very different conversation than like how like how to communicate and standup meetings I think they're they're kind of looking at One symptom which is I happen to not get noticed in standup meetings no one seems to care and stand up meetings but I don't think that's like the root of what they're after I feel like and I don't know the person it's hard
for me to say I feel like the root of what they're after is like I don't feel recognized for my work that's that's how I believe that to be the case or or maybe they feel like um it seems like my work is not important right and the reason I think it could be something like that is uh they they mention other people seem to be working on similar things so why are they being asked about their work and I'm not being asked about mine why do I feel invisible maybe it's not quite about recognition but it's about like am I even doing something that's worthwhile sorry people are going like half the speed limit I can see my wife is like half a mile ahead of me cuz just been like hanging out behind slow cars um we can't let her win but she's
going to win um so I I that's why I said at the beginning of this video I think there's something a little bit deeper going on here so uh I I wanted to just spend a couple of minutes talking about this because if this feels relatable to you I think there's more exploring that we have to do into this and when I say we I mean unfortunately you um you have to go explore this a little bit more and understand so if you're feeling like you're not being recognized for your work I think that's a really important conversation to have with your manager okay um if we think like I want you to put yourself in your manager shoes for a moment um recognition is actually not a trivial thing it sounds like it might be trivial people people do work you say hey great
job or you say to the team hey look at hey look at Billy Billy did an awesome job everyone clapped for Billy right like these are things when people think of recognition it's like um raising awareness to people doing a good job I think is a common way that people often associate with like or a meaning they associate with recognition and um the reality is that people like being recognized in different ways they want to feel appreciated they want to feel valued that does not necessarily mean they want attention brought to it so um some some managers like are they stay on top of recognition but they don't do it effectively some man ERS don't do any recognition some managers will uh understand that like everything is situational and they understand that they have individuals on their team that like recognition in certain ways some
people do want attention brought to them they feel better when there's like visibility brought this way some people hate it I have absolutely worked with people in my career and I learned this very early on they were like I literally never want you to say in front of a group of people like look this person did a good job they're like I hate it I can't stand it it makes me so uncomfortable but they were very you know appreciative you know behind closed doors you're like hey you did awesome on this like uh you know thank you for all your efforts people like recognition in different ways some managers probably don't even know this unfortunately my phone's trying to connect to my wife's car that's great um so I think you should honestly have a conversation with your manager bring it up and just talk
about like hey hey in terms of being engaged um sorry someone's pinging me for on Call work I'm not on call but um they said it's urgent sorry to ping you but then they didn't say what it is okay um I'm almost home just pulling into to my house okay um so yeah have a conversation with your manager about how you prefer recognition because that ties into engagement it's very difficult to remain engaged if you're feeling like you're never recognized uh and then the other thing and I'm going to make this part short just because I got to drive to Costco but I also help to help have to help with this on call situation um is if you're feeling like you don't understand the importance of your work if you're like feeling like hey seems like other people's work is important why not mine
um and what the symptom You observe is that no one's asking you about it have a conversation with your product owner or your manager to understand it I think it's super important for people to understand the importance of their work the value it adds for customers valued adds to the business uh sometimes people gloss over this especially if you feel like you know there's an never- ending backlog it says work work work like yeah dig into understanding why I think it makes a tremendous difference for keeping people engaged and uh I honestly think that when people understand why they can get more creative regarding those solutions to things did my wife leave me enough room she did okay so um I think that's what I have to say about that sorry for kind of the abrupt end and I'm going to try to this weekend
record a a burnout video with my wife who is right there she's getting the garbage okay see you guys later thanks
Frequently Asked Questions
These Q&A summaries are AI-generated from the video transcript and may not reflect my exact wording. Watch the video for the full context.
- How should I approach my manager if I feel invisible during standup meetings?
- I recommend having an open conversation with your manager about your feelings of invisibility and your expectations for visibility. It's important to communicate your concerns so your manager can support you and help set clear expectations. Avoid letting fear or paranoia prevent you from seeking this support.
- What is the main purpose of standup meetings and how should I give updates?
- Standup meetings are meant to be quick and focus on milestones, blockers, and progress. I advise giving concise updates like 'nothing to report, making good progress' if everything is on track. If you're stuck or blocked, it's crucial to raise that early so the team can help and make adjustments.
- How can I feel more recognized and engaged in my work as a developer?
- I suggest having a conversation with your manager about how you prefer to be recognized because recognition varies for each person. Also, understanding the importance and value of your work to customers and the business can boost engagement. If you feel your work isn't important, talk to your product owner or manager to gain clarity on its impact.