[ipnon]

The simplest solution is to make all meetings optional. Then people will stop going to meetings that are not useful to them. You will be forced to find better solutions to the problems your meetings were solving sub-optimally.

Many meetings are used to simply coordinate activity. This can easily be done through asynchronous communication using email or instant messaging.

[magicalhippo]

If I'm called into a meeting and I don't see a clear need for me there, I'll ask why I was invited.

Usually there's a reason, but often it's just cause a question might come up that I can answer or similar. In those cases I'll let them know they can poke me if they really need me and then I'll join for whatever they need.

Thankfully my boss has understood that the less he's in our way the more we get done, so this works well.

[decafninja]

One of the best things a manager can do for their engineering team is insulate them away from all the pointless bureacracy in the org - including most meetings.

My boss is fantastic at this. I feel sorry for him, but also highly respect him. He goes into a stupid, pointless, hour-long meeting where only 3 minutes of content is relevant to us. Of course our entire team was invited and nominally expected to attend. He pushes back saying we're busy. He comes back and relays those 3 minutes of important content while suffering through 57 minutes of droll.