[blowski]

Nice idea, but doesn't work in practice. Without talking regularly with key stakeholders, you have no idea whether you're building the right thing - and frequently you won't.

If you define productivity merely as writing lines of code, then sure, meetings are a waste of time. But if you define productivity as delivering something genuinely valuable, then talking often makes you much more productive.

[sambe]

I'm not sure you're going to the same kind of meetings as the ancestors. Of course you need context and feedback. The kind of meetings that often happen in a certain type of business involve way more people than necessary, most of whom also lack the context to make informed choices, and prefer to continually change the subject to draw or divert attention to/from themselves. Product meetings with savvy stakeholders pulling in a mostly unified direction are awesome. Even when people disagree, as long as they agree on the rules of the game and try to work for a win-win things tend to work out pretty well. Talking in circles offf-topic for 2 hours whilst people play with their social media isn't productive in anyone's definition.