Ask HN: Does it matter if development team members have the camera off?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31349765

by andrewstuart • 4 years ago

2 5 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Do you think it matters in software development if certain team members have their camera almost always off?

What difference does it make?

Are you camera on or off?

geoah• 4 years ago

IMO Good communication is really important in any team. Video in meetings for me is really useful as I can use visual cues from my team to understand where they stand, whether they agree, etc. Smiling, signalling with thumbs up/down, emoting of any kind is a really good way to pass on quite a bit of information from multiple people at once without having to unmute and speak up to voice your reaction.

I’m not sure how useful this is in larger teams where i guess you can’t have your whole team in a single window, but at least for smaller teams it’s really useful as to gauge the overall team sentiment.

jka• 4 years ago

Who benefits when the camera is on, and in what ways does that affect software development?

glawre• 4 years ago

I recently moved from an org where most people (90%+)used their camera for meetings to an org where 99% of meetings are using an audio teleconf system.

As a new joiner I’ve found it much harder to build relationships over audio only, especially with peers who are remote. This may just be a personal flaw that I have.

I have definitely noticed that the audio calls are more prone to people interrupting and talking over each other. This is often eliminated on video calls because you can see visual cues that someone would like to speak, or that someone is thinking about the question prior to responding. Video is a much higher bandwidth medium for collaboration, imo.

Personally I’d prefer meetings to be video first.

logicalmonster• 4 years ago

As an introvert developer, it feels like I have an energy budget, and interacting in things like meetings takes a chunk of that budget. Too many meetings and interactions too frequently leaves me socially drained and useless.

I can participate in a meeting when I have to, but there's a cost.

I can be on-camera in meetings when I have to, but I have to focus more to interact in that kind of setting and I feel far more drained afterwards.

I can understand that a manager might want to see their team and have frequent video meetings and try and read body-language, but I hope managers understand there's a wide variety of personality types and being in that kind of social setting isn't using a lot of peoples' strengths too wisely and might be reducing the effectiveness of some of their team members.

StephenTL22• 4 years ago

Remote working can be very effective, but only if high levels of communication are maintained. Being able to see people's reactions and being able to get to know them is far easier when the camera is on.

The importance of understanding how people work (and what mood they are in that day) can not be underestimated if you want a team to be productive.

Some of my team leave an open video link on between each other as they do their work so they can grab a coffee together or chat about their plans for the weekend.

Ask HN: Does it matter if development team members have the camera off?

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