Can we whiteboard this?
Have you been in this situation? Talking to a colleague or more senior engineer over zoom and they’re explaining something only using their voice. You nod and nod cause you generally understand some of the things they’re saying but the details are going over your head. You think “I’ll just look at the code after to figure out what they’re saying”.
This is a double whammy of wasted time. They’re speaking cause they want you to have the same understanding as they and you have to invest extra time afterwards to properly understand.
Though it’s been years since many in software started remote work, I myself have fallen into this amateur remote collaboration pitfall. This morning I realized trying to learn something from a colleague from just their voice is really hard.
Learning through just listening is like being in a math lecture but the professor doesn’t use a chalk/white board, slides or any visual aides. I would have never been successful in school if that were the case. So how does it make sense to learn from a colleague in such a limited way.
Next time I’m in this situation, I’m gonna quickly suggest: can we white board this? I can either draw along what I’m hearing to get validation that I’m accurately understanding what they’re describing or they can do the drawing which gives them the prompt to think about the best way to represent the info to maximize understanding.