How do you run effective meetings?

Question

Accepted Answer

An effective meeting has a **clear purpose, the right people, and a decision or outcome** — if it has none of those, it should be an async message instead. Respect for people's time is respect for the team.

## A pre-meeting checklist

```text
BEFORE you book it:
□ Is there a clear PURPOSE / decision to make?
□ Could this be an email / doc / async thread?
□ Who actually NEEDS to be here? (smaller is better)
□ Is there an AGENDA shared in advance?
□ Is there a pre-read so we don't read live?
```

## During and after

- **Start with the goal**, end with **decisions, owners, and deadlines**.
- **Facilitate** — draw out quiet people, contain dominators, park tangents.
- **Send notes** with action items and owners.

## Pitfalls

- **Status meetings** that could be a dashboard or async update.
- **No agenda** — the meeting wanders and decides nothing.
- **Too many attendees** — cost scales with headcount.
- **No decision** — people leave unsure what happens next.

## Why it matters

Meetings are expensive: a one-hour meeting with eight people is a workday gone.

Wasteful meetings are a direct tax on the team's focus and morale.

Tight meetings also protect maker time.

Engineers need long uninterrupted blocks; every meeting you eliminate or shorten buys the team back real productive hours.