>As a manager it's very hard to get everyone else on board with this

If management was easy then everyone would do it.

How about this for a start? You taking total control of your direct report's calendar. They have read only so can see what meetings you have scheduled they should attend. You book the meetings.

Anyone who wants a meeting has to disturb the manager (so there will be fewer requests) and pushback will have more force.

It's not whiny engineer saying they can't attend the meeting. It's the manager saying they are too busy.

You could also send just 1 report to a meeting instead of the whole team. Since you control the calendar you can choose who goes.

>Some Sr. roles allow for hard-split meeting days vs. productive days

Such as?

>Or perhaps the meetings are actually more important than the coding tasks and that is why they get priority.

If that is the case. Then the programmers KPI and perfomance review should be based on how many of these meetings they attended.

Hell if meetings really are more important and add to productivty. How about paying meeting attendance bonuses?

No one will put there money where there mouth is because they know it's a waste of time to have a meeting that could be an email.

They need to look busy to justify their own salary

>manager-types try to come up with metrics to measure programmer productivity.

Plenty can. The CFO types look at profit per commit/schedule whatever.

A lot of middle managment types look at activity per commit.

The real issue here is that mangement by productivity data. Means most management is deadweight that can be replaced by a spreedsheet with the ability to send form emails to those falling behind on the metrics.

Anywhere else would be downsized, but management has enough power go protect it's own existence at the expense of the company.

>a SPOC that can filter all meeting requests by the email / 5 minutes / required vs inflated attendees / agenda / etc criteria before they even happen.

That's the project manager's job. The more meetings they allow. The more the project suffers. The more that are missed. The less poltical power. So they need to focus on fewer quality meetings for the ICs. More meetings for the PM.

>The problem is that when you do this, and then don't go to the meeting, and then a decision is made that you don't agree with, you are told, "well you had a chance but you didn't come to the meeting".

I would have if the item, I cared about was on the agenda.

This is why agenda are a) important b) should be sent out 24 hours or more before the meeting c) should be rigdly followed.

Anything else is either poor communication or a waste of productivity.

This gives everyone time to review the agendas. Making a decision which is worth attending,which is worth escalating.

Beside the manager should be representing you anyway.

>if you clearly weren't busy, because they don't equate coding with being busy. Sitting at your desk == not busy in their mind.

Coding yes. A skype meeting would be busy in their mind.

>Any recommendations?

Yes. That 'maker' time is a 'virtual' meeting.

If you can schedule it with a name. E.g. TPS report meeting with Bob it is much more respected. Your in a meeting, so you must be very busy.

Harder in an open plan or Easy to see office

Works best with a couple of friendly coder from another site in the company.

Set up a notebook to skype with each other then mute it. Pop headset on.

You must be busy with all those people in that zoom meeting.

They will respect meetings with other coders in a way they won't respect make time.

Make sure it's regular on the calendar. Remember to mark how your most productive work comes out of the "pair programming meeting"

Was this Google's entire point of 10% time?

An outlet for unicorns that keeps them away from the company bread & butter and unicorns.

>To play devils advocate: If he was as brilliant as you imply perhaps he SHOULD have been the one making the key decisions under his purview anyway

If he should have been. Then he should probably have been lead eng or something.

His authority and actions were mismatched. Management can change either side of the equation.

Wait until the dover-calais power grid interconnector goes down on nov 1st.

I assume you're referring to Brexit. Any indication that this would actually affect the power grid?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-energy/no-deal-br...

“UK-issued Renewable Guarantees of Origin and Guarantees of Origin for combined heat and power will no longer be recognised in the EU. If an existing contract with an EU countries’ electricity supplier or trader requires an EU-recognised Guarantee of Origin, it is possible that the contract could be compromised”