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How to Reduce Meetings πŸͺš

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How to Reduce Meetings πŸͺš

Strategies and practical ideas for better async communication, and a detailed case study.

Luca Rossi
Feb 9
20
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How to Reduce Meetings πŸͺš

refactoring.fm
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Hey πŸ‘‹ this is Luca! Welcome to a πŸ”’ weekly edition πŸ”’ of Refactoring.

Every week I write advice on how to become a better engineering leader, backed by my own experience, research and case studies.

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  • What is a Technical Program Manager?

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I spend 10-20% of my time doing some consulting to teams who want to work better together.

I do this to stay grounded to reality, and not to turn eventually into one of those ivory tower writers who talk about things they don’t really know anymore.

Basically me (except I don’t wear glasses) β€” nicely drawn by Leslie Herman.

In these chats, the absolute #1 complaint I hear is: β€œwe do too many meetings”.

These thoughts are popular even outside the β€” admittedly small β€” sample I can observe. A few years ago, Pluralsight ran a wide survey where engineers ranked the biggest offenders to their productivity.

Meetings got the silver medal πŸ₯ˆΒ right behind waiting for other people to do stuff. But while waiting for people is a necessary evil sometimes, boy do bad meetings feel like a waste of time!

I have already written about this in the past πŸ‘‡Β and that article prompted many conversations with teams and tech leaders.

Refactoring
When Should You Have a Meeting? πŸ”‹
Hey πŸ‘‹ this is Luca! Welcome to a πŸ”’ weekly edition πŸ”’ of Refactoring. Every week I write advice on how to become a better engineering leader, backed by my own experience, research and case studies. You can learn more about Refactoring here. To receive all the full articles and support Refactoring, consider subscribing πŸ‘‡β€¦
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2 years ago Β· 16 likes Β· 6 comments Β· Luca Rossi

Fast forward two years, I think we can go deeper β€” by adding more ideas and making real-world, practical examples of meetings that have been successfully removed, and how.

So this is what we will cover today:

  • πŸ™…β€β™‚οΈΒ Meetings culture β€” why meetings are so divisive today.

  • πŸ”₯ Meetings extremes β€” why extreme examples you find online are just wishful thinking.

  • βš–οΈ Status vs Action β€” the goals of a meeting and those of its attendees. You can’t cut anything until you don’t understand those.

  • πŸͺš Unbundling meetings β€” how to make a meeting smaller or remove it altogether, in practice.

  • πŸ” Case Study β€” we take a real-world, bi-weekly, 2 hours review + planning, and make it gradually… disappear!

Let’s dive in!

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