How long do they last: 30 minutes on Tuesdays and Thursday
How many people: 4 when we started, up to like 10-12 now. I think the right size is like 6-8 maybe. We're approaching critical mass where we either need to add a lot of process or splinter it into separate groups with a good ratio of experienced to less-experienced people.
General musings: We have a separate one for the frontend and the backend each. We started with the frontend one and that's the one I've run and iterated on the process of. The basic structure is just go over the commits from the past 2 days (since we do it Tues/Thurs). You have to rely on the person running the meeting to 1) know what's important to spend extra time on and 2) keep the meeting rolling along through the meaty, important commits. This requires a decent amount of knowledge in the domain area as well as some good sense of the pulse for what's being worked on across different teams so they know when to surface things that would be important for cross-communication. That and even having a sense for good mentoring opportunities (e.g. people keep having trouble with `async/await` so I'll call out this commit with really good examples of using that feature).
So, all and all, the person leading it is one of the most important things. Having a good culture that's open to healthy constructive feedback is super helpful and allows you to dive into some conversations ripe with growth opportunities. It's one of my favorite things we do at our company!
