The more we write, the less people pay attention in meetings when it matters. It’s because they expect to get a written briefing afterwards, with their tasks neatly listed. You see this in businesses, universities, at conferences and other contexts as well. Will you send us the slides/PRD/summary afterwards? is probably the most-heard question at the start of many presentations.
There’s a time and place for written documents, of course. And when there’s a good document, we should go read the document, comment on it, and try to build a better document together with our colleagues. Better yet: build a prototype.
But when we do have a meeting, then out of respect to ourselves and our own time we should pay attention.
So I’ve got a new rule. When we have a meeting, the meeting is what you get. You won’t get a summary and a neat list of tasks or a fully finished PRD. Our job is to work together to ship excellent software for our customers. We’ll talk about what we have to build and how to build it. And afterwards everyone in the meeting should do their part. Fuck the PRD. Start shipping.