You don't need that many meetings

Published: April 1, 2025

⏳ Daily Standup (report to me style or daily Scrum to align?) 😵‍💫
⏳ Project Status Update (Weekly Sync) 😵‍💫
⏳ On-Call Rotation / Incident Handover 😵‍💫
⏳ Quarterly Business Review (QBR) 😵‍💫
⏳ Backlog Refinement (Grooming) 😵‍💫
⏳ Incident Review (Postmortem) 😵‍💫
⏳ Product Roadmap Meeting(s) 😵‍💫
⏳ Change Management / CAB 😵‍💫
⏳ Code Review / Peer Review 😵‍💫
⏳ Inter-Team Alignment(s) 😵‍💫
⏳ Infrastructure Review 😵‍💫
⏳ Prioritization Meeting 😵‍💫
⏳ Cross-Team Sync(s) 😵‍💫
⏳ Sprint Retrospective 😵‍💫
⏳ Architecture Review 😵‍💫
⏳ User Story Mapping 😵‍💫
⏳ Security Review 😵‍💫
⏳ Kickoff Meeting 😵‍💫
⏳ Team Check-in 😵‍💫
⏳ Sprint Planning 😵‍💫
⏳ Design Review 😵‍💫
⏳ Demo meeting 😵‍💫
⏳ Sprint Review 😵‍💫
⏳ DevOps Sync 😵‍💫
⏳ One-on-One 😵‍💫
⏳ Bug Triage 😵‍💫
⏳ Tech Sync 😵‍💫
⏳ Dev Sync 😵‍💫
.
.
.

But, in most cases we can just replace a 2 hours meeting with an email, a Slack message, or a simple comment on a ticket. Then, instead of having isolated communication islands, where people have to "figure out" who has made decision together with who, you will have fewer sources of truth, were everyone can just go an check themselves. This way, you will have more time to communicate the most important messages that really need a synchronous way of communication, and you will have more time to focus on your work. If someone later joins the team, in most cases they can just check the git/PR/ticket history and understand. This way, also, you will have more time for team building and socializing, which is also important for a healthy team culture.

So next time...

Ask yourself:

Do we need them all?
All the time?
Do we always need a synchronous way of communication? Or asynchronous is enough?
Can it be replaced with a simple comment on a ticket?
Or, as an exception, should I also communicate this specific message synchronously in a meeting/call?

Also, remember, now that you are replacing your direct communication with a more efficient async one, you should always set aside time for fun/chat/team building, otherwise the team spirit will be gone.

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