can't pay attention during long requirements meetings

Question

I think I'm great at implementing solutions, fixing, tackling technical problems creatively, etc. but I have a really hard time when I have to go to long meetings with lots of people where requirements are discussed. I tend to zone in and out and contribute / remember very little. All I can think of is "just tell me what to do and I'll code it". While I've managed with this "weakness" for a long time, I'm worrying about it in my current job because people have been mentioning that I don't seem to be paying attention in these meetings. Any advice / experiences to share?

Answer 1

Stand up.
When you're feeling like you're dozing off, get out of your chair and stand. No one will usually think anything of it.

Answer 2

If you're not good at it, then don't do it. Unless you're in a small company there are usually analysts whose job is to do this kind of thing while you're being more useful writing code and coming up with designs. Not everyone is good at everything, so you do what you're good at and let the analysts handle it.

Answer 3

Don't multitask. I find that when I let myself start doing or thinking about something else that I totally loose track of what is happening.

Try to stay involved. Interaction will keep you focused.

Answer 4

Assuming that not taking part isn't an option: Take a laptop. Do your best to document as much of the discussion as possible. You might still not make much of a contribution and doing this might effectively make you an overpaid secretary, but you'll have something to keep your mind vaguely occupied, you'll have decent notes of who said what, no-one will be able to say you weren't paying attention and in the best case, since you'll be concentrating on what's going on, you might realise when somebody's suggesting something that's non-optimal.

Answer 5

Are you important to the discussion? If so, recommend breaking up these long meetings into shorter ones where a subset of the requirements are addressed. If not, get out of going to them.

Make sure you get enough sleep.

Insist on short breaks. You body and brain don't need to be sitting for long periods.

Can some of this be handled offline, maybe via some electronic means where you can discuss requirements in a setting that doesn't require everyone to sit around and "think out loud"?

Anytime there is a long meeting, we try to break it up so that everyone remains fresh. We try to have only the required folks there and try to limit the scope of the meeting. Some things simply have to be slogged through but if we can avoid 'design by committee' meetings, we do. Time is money, of course.

Hope that helps.

Answer 6

You should be thinking about a few things:

Why aren't you interested?

Is it because the material isn't interesting to you? Are the people conducting the meeting boring or bad at it? Do you feel like you don't have anything to contribute? Either way, this is something you should explore. If you can find the source of your general apathy towards these sessions, you'll know how to correct it (if you so choose).

Is this the best, most effective way for you to contribute to the team?

What is the purpose of you being at the meetings? You wouldn't have been invited unless other people valued your expertise and thought at the meetings. In fact, that may be why people are noticing that you're not paying attention -- they expected that you would have something to contribute and they're not getting it.

How do other people feel about the same situation?

Have you mentioned to others how you feel about this situation? Do they know that you have a lot to contribute, for example, but that you're having trouble doing so because it's difficult to focus? Perhaps other people feel the same way about the meetings, and maybe it's not just you. Maybe the meetings themselves are the problem, and not you at all!

One good first step is to talk to your manager and express these concerns. S/he'll help you work towards finding a solution -- or at least, they should if they're any good!

Answer 7

Doodle - it's been proven to help: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/doodlerecall.html

Answer 8

I've found that the only way not to go out of my mind during a boring meeting is to either

1. Have a laptop and work on something else
2. Take careful notes

The first is obviously not suitable unless it is a REALLY big meeting and you can just blend with the crowd, probably not an option for you.

So, if you are worried about this, I suggest you try taking notes. Personally I just use a simple notebook and a pen. Imagine that you'll need to relay the key points of the meeting to someone else later. This should keep your mind focused. Even if you don't contribute anything, you'll definitely look like you are paying careful attention.

Answer 9

Learn about requirements management, get more involved. I'd suggest e.g. Cockburn's Effective Use Cases: it's a reasonably short book with lots of pracical guidance. Use what you learn to help give direction to the meetings, and participate actively rather than passively.

You need to ask yourself: are you interested in helping people and solving business problems with IT, or using business as an excuse to work with interesting IT problems? The latter has its charms, particularly when you're fresh to development, but the former can actually provide more long-term satisfaction (and, potentially, even rewards!).

Answer 10

If you feel you can contribute or learn something you shouldn't be in that meeting.

You seem to be driven by the work it self and what you are building. That said. Are you happy with what you are doing?

Answer 11

I find that drinking something helps. Something caffienated, preferably, but even just sipping a glass of water helps me keep focus...

Also, doodling.

Answer 12

Meetings should not take more than 20 minutes. If it takes longer, then it should be split up into several smaller meetings.

The usual reason for big meetings is that "all players are in one room". Which ultimately only serves the ego of the project lead. A much better solution is to have a big meeting to get everyone up to speed, then several small meetings where the experts (two or three) discuss the topics they know about. And then another big meeting where the results of the small meetings are summarized so everyone is on the same level again.

PS: Never assume you're the only one dozing off. If you're bored, chances are, that 80% of the rest is, too.

Answer 13

knead your earlap :) this works fine for me ;)

Answer 14

When it comes to meetings, I want to have as few as possible. Those that I do attend I expect to get great value out of them. What do you find useful in the meeting? Latch onto it. Look for the technical parts behind it.

Effective meetings are mostly about communication. There's the "e-mail that gets forwarded around' level, which is useful for not very quickly changing ideas and status updates. Then there's the instant message, for quick questions and snippets of information. You've got the phone (or conference) call option (which I often supplement with instant message for passing around links or e-mails with tidbits of technical information) for your more active discussions. Then at the top of the food chain are Meetings.

Meetings - formal or informal - are a form of communication. Meetings let you disseminate a large amount of information and most importantly, get lots of feedback in a very short amount of time. Supplemented with handouts or a computer projector, you can get a ton of stuff accomplished in a very short amount of time.

People uses them differently. Do your best to make sure it is an effective medium for yourself. If your co-workers are worried about you in regards to these meetings, then they think that there's something you're missing. If you're there, there's a 90% chance it's for a reason: most people in healthy organizations don't attend meetings just to attend meetings. Figure out what that reason is. If you're a creative, technical guru, that's great! Show it in these meetings. When they talk about the features, this is time to imagine in your head ways to implement them. It's likely that because you are the one who is going to figure out how to do it, they want to know your take on it. "Is it feasible to implement?" Heh...this answer is almost always yes, but now it's your chance to explain the caveats. You probably already know if the feature is going to take a day, a week, or a year to implement. This is your chance to speak up and let them know.

Of course, there's always the chance that the meeting you're involved in really doesn't have a good purpose. One of my favorite blog posts on meetings is This blog post at RandsInRepose, talking about meeting agenda detection - knowing whether or not you've got yourself in a good meeting.

Each month for the past twelve months, we have had the same meeting. This is the problem, these are the risks, this is what we know, this is what we don’t know. All that preliminary crap takes thirty minutes and since it’s been a month since we last heard it, everyone needs to be reminded of all the intricacies. Heads nod while I slowly dig my nails into the conference room table. We then begin the chasing our tail portion of the meeting where all the same questions are asked and answered again. This is why the senior engineer is no longer engaged. He’s tired of repeating himself.

Really, read up on it, it's a great article. (And while you're there, read up on Meeting Creatures, it's just as amusing.)

In summary: See if there's something you can do to contribute to the meeting. There probably is, that's why you're there. If not, work it out in a reasonable way with your boss or whoever is asking you to come to the meeting. Explain your point of view, and just deal with it like a rational adult.

But also remember: those meetings are probably where all the big decisions for your product happen. If you want to ever be more than just a code monkey, step up and take part.

Answer 15

To me, a good developer is able to implement quality working features on time. That's how I read your description of yourself.

A great developer not only is technically skilled but also understands how their work product provides business value and can shape the product by relating that understanding to stakeholders.

Many developers don't care about business value - they just want to code. Some developers have the kind of position where just doing tech is possible. It sounds to me like you may not have that kind of job. If you're involved in requirements elicitation, which is about designing features to create business value, and you don't care about business value, maybe you want to remind yourself that without business value, you wouldn't have a job.

Instead of simply thinking: "What do you want me to code?", what about putting some energy into: "Is this proposed feature going to meet the customer's need, increase our business, and allow the company to provide me with interesting technical tasks? If it is, can we improve it to provide even more value? If it is not, what would be a better alternative?"

And, as others have said - if you really have little or nothing to contribute, tell your manager that you feel you provide the best value by continuing on your technical tasks and ask to be excused from the meetings.

Answer 16

The first thing I should say is have you considered seeing a doctor? Bear in mind that difficulty paying attention to things can be a sign of a lot of both mental and physical disorders. These range from ADHD to Anxiety to diabetes to thyroid problems. Granted, it's difficult to write the fact that you can't pay attention in boring meetings to some medical condition. But if this is a sustained problem that you don't seem to be able to overcome, you should seriously get yourself checked out.

Here are some things that I've found to help:

1. Take notes. I usually take time to write down questions that I may want to ask but not during the meeting. It's been proven that this helps you pay attention.
2. Ask questions. I seriously doubt that you're ever going to be able to fully pay attention during a meeting you find boring. But when you realize that you've been spacing out and you have no idea what people are talking about, ask. It may be a dumb question that might have been covered to death several minutes ago, but if you ask about it, it at least shows you're making an effort to pay attention. And I usually find that if you prefix the question with "You might have already talked about this, but...", people usually aren't put off.
3. Take care of yourself. Don't skip breakfast in the morning. And do a bit of exercising if you aren't. You'd be surprised at how big of a difference these will make.

But again, if this is a serious problem for you that's interfering with your work life this much, you should really seek medical advice.