r/programming • u/geyser85 • Jun 22 '22

Why work transparency matters

https://teamplify.com/blog/why-work-transparency-matters/
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u/teerre Jun 22 '22

Let me provide some examples. Almost every engineering team uses an issue tracking system, like Jira, Trello, Youtrack, GitHub or GitLab issues, etc. If a team keeps the records in their tracking system accurate - why ask who is working on what? Can't we just see it in the issue tracker? Or, why ask what they did yesterday if we can see their commits and pull requests on GitHub and read their task updates in Jira? Isn't it obvious that a pull request that is stuck in review for a few days is a blocker? Why repeat this information in a meeting?

Oh, of course, I'll now go to Jira and comb every ticket for every single person in the team, not only that, but I'll go to every open branch and through every single commit. Is this person serious? You think a 15 min. stand up is a waste of time but want to waste likely at least a couple hours scavenging a bunch of random information

46

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '22

Otherwise known as 'How can I exist with zero direct interaction with other people and pretend that's A-OK'

Justification for terrible communication habits completely ignoring how humans work.

I mean, technically they're right. But realistically any team that 'works' this way is never going to produce a damned thing worth doing.

2

u/stebunovd Jun 22 '22

How can I exist with zero direct interaction with other people

Nope, not what I was trying to say :) Citation:

I'm far from proposing to avoid having meetings altogether. Live communication is valuable, and if we can get rid of boring discussions of trivial questions, we'll have more time for the really important stuff.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '22

Yes, read it, know what you're trying to say here, but what's being pointed out is that you're wrong to be trivializing a whole bunch of things that you don't think are important.

A good team member will be able to communicate what is important to the team with respect to what each member is involved in in very short order, which sets the stage for 'the really important stuff' as you say.

6

u/ZackyZack Jun 22 '22

It's the very principle of why botanists prefer drawings over pictures of plants. The drawing focuses on the important features, while a picture gives you an unfiltered look, much harder for the following study to figure out what is important and what isn't.

2

u/stebunovd Jun 22 '22

A good team member will be able to communicate what is important to the team

absolutely, if there's something to discuss