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Field Reports: Guerrilla Office Tactics
Merlin Mann | Oct 1 2007
I've started collecting stories -- some of which may be entirely apocryphal tall tales -- of the purported lengths to which people are going to filter noise and to ensure that their time and attention aren't ceded to bad ideas, thoughtless people, or garden-variety time burglars. Here's a few of the more novel ones I've picked up. I'd also love to hear your favorites from amongst the cheats, tricks, and squirrely rules you've heard about: Before you flame meI’m not saying I necessarily promote or recommend any of these for you (or anyone, for that matter) — I just think they’re a fascinating snapshot of the lengths people need to go to today in order to get a semblance of order in their environment.
Yeah, sure, some of these are extreme, and some may get you fired or punched in the nose. But you have to admit, people are conducting some fascinating evolutionary experiments. Tempting stuff. The Question to YouHave you heard of any tricks that teams and individuals are trying to keep the madness at bay? Any that you can verify are being used in your own group — and are they succeeding or failing? For the mentioned tricks you find abhorrent, what solutions do you think might work better? 17 Comments
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No Chairs Works...Submitted by nag83 on October 1, 2007 - 10:20am.
We did this for one project where we had daily "standing" meetings. Basically the idea is that everyone stands and the meetings are only long enough to get a status update, short discussions and some to-do's. Other topics are discussed more in-depth during the normal weekly status meetings. These standing meetings are just to ensure we don't have any road blocks that will lose 2 or 3 days of productivity. They also generally only involve the people actually doing the work and not as much management. For me, I get more work donewhen I telecommute or work on another OS (such as Unix/Linux instead of Windows). This helps keep me from being distracted by emails or the phone calls. Thank goodness for source control and ftp. » POSTED IN:
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