[stupidgeek314]

if you leave things up to engineers to just "get things done", you're not going to end up with a product/service that is actually useful.

meetings are a critical part of any project. what people don't like is BAD meetings. And most meetings are bad, because most people don't know how to have effective meetings.

[jwbensley]

I think this is an important note that you have made. Meetings are not a place for free and open discussion, which in my experience often derails them.

We tend to have two kinds of meetin. The first kind is with another team (or teams) that is to clarify something, or request something, or provide them with information etc. (what exactly is roughly agreed beforehand so that we come with the info required). This is not a free for all discussion. We need something from this meeting, or maybe they do, so we have an aim to stay focused on.

The other kind of meeting we tend to have is a private team meeting where we discuss things openly and freely, although the head of our team still steers the topic, but loosely (so, still not a total free for all, but less strict that a meeting with another team). An example is our weekly team meting, the main agenda is sharing updates with the rest of the team on where we are in our individual projects, but we can also side track a bit if its some how relevant or noteworthy.