[DenisM]

Short answer: don't have meetings.

Long answer: work in the same room together for a few hours a week (10-20). This way as questions come up they will get resolved in context. Announcements, presentations and other broadcast-type things can be made at coffee break. Start having meetings after this model stops scaling.

[spencerfry]

I disagree with your short answer. Our 3 person company has a weekly meeting every Friday from 1 minute to anywhere to 30 minutes depending on if anything needs to be discussed in more detail. It's a very good idea to get together once a week outside of just working together to go over the week's happenings even if it's only for a few minutes. It serves to seal the deal of the week and get everyone completely caught up.

I also disagree with your long answer. It's not necessarily productive to work in the same room. That's why God invented cubicles! In all seriousness, though, a lot of people -- myself included -- work best in isolation. The bottom line is that you should get the people together in your group and figure out what will work best. Some people prefer working in the same room, some people get distracted because of that, etc. Find our what works best for you and stick to that.

[DenisM]

I'm not saying this lightly, I was dead set agains it before I became 100% for it. It boils down to one thing:

It's a lot easier to stay focused when the other guy is focused.

[spencerfry]

Who's saying anything about focus? That's not the topic here. You're saying meetings (no matter how short or how on topic) are useless. That's really far from the truth. Any organization, no matter how small, needs to get together and re-hash what's going on within the company. You can't just expect to work telepathically.

[DenisM]

If you work in the same room you will stay up to date with your mates. When I checkin stuff, everyone in the room knows about it. And when I start cursing they know what's going, too.

I agree my "focus" comment was a bit offtopic. Got carried away there. :)

EDIT: and I did not say meetings are useless, please don't put words in my mouth. I said don't have them because there are better ways to stay in sync. Meetings can be useful, just not as efficient.

[spencerfry]

2 of us work out of the same office; the other works in a different state. (We do all get together every few months, though.) However, at least for us, we've found that it's better to separate ourselves inside the office for complete concentration. If someone needs to communicate with the other person, instead of yelling over to them, we send a message on Campfire and wait for the person to respond.

Anyway, this is all getting a bit off topic as far as meetings are concerned. I really think you need to do what is best for you and sometimes that's having weekly meetings, sometimes that's having monthly meetings, and sometimes that's having no meetings. However, I really advocate the weekly meetings, because it's very important to make sure everyone is on the same page. And not to sound corporate or anything, but you need to make sure your goals are aligned.

[Stabback]

Unfortunately this is not an option. One of our team is working on the west coast, the other three are east coast. We currently do not have an office - we are a home based organization (we are coding and running around contacting potential clients/investors).

We are having weekly meetings to get everyone back on the same page as the work is largely independent at this point.

[DenisM]

We use skype when apart - both video and audio. Good camera, mike and speaker help. We'd just sit and code with a little window showing the other guy, when something comes up we would talk it over and then code again. Don't knock it till you try it!