Meetings are not productive

I saw some one post this:  The best feeling in Software Engineering is being late on a meeting because you were so locked in solving a task.

It's an interesting point.  I can relate.  There's been times I have been late or even forgot to go to meeting because I was deep into solving a problem, even with automatic reminders.  Over the years, I have, at least time from time, changed my habits to stop work when the reminder comes up so I do not miss a meeting.  And there have been times when there's a 30 minute gap between meetings, I refused to start anything because by the time I got into what I started, I would have to stop.

For some reason, people, especially managers, seem to think more gets done with meetings--sure a meeting might be needed to decide the high level "this is what we need" but the success doesn't come from that decision as much as it does from the hard work of creating the solution to that decision.  I think that is naive at best, at least in engineering, to believe meetings achieve more.    With exceptions of course, most successes in engineering do not come from meerting or interuptions.   Instead, the progress and success happens when we get into the flow--that flow is created when time and space allow ones brain to focus.  I don't know about you but that has happened at 3am more often than I like!

So I think its important to realize meetings may actually hamper real success, slow down progress--and I will go as far as to say that too many meetings are a culture problem.   So, do not be afrad to scale these back, make most attendees optional and make an environment that is safe to skip or miss meetings and maybe time to reconsider using DACI.  

I have commented on time wasting before.  There's a lot of things that slow down productivity and meetings is definitely one of those. 

PS:  Here's some other thoughts on productivity killers.