[maayank]

“An engineer’s impact during a meeting is less tangible compared to coding”

The common disdain to meetings is that in many meetings no one has a tangible impact while an engineer can create tangible value in their “regular” stated mission. If reading this makes you feel offended then don’t worry, it’s surely not your meetings… only those organized by functionaries whose sole contribution is organizing open ended meetings with no impact.

[slowmovintarget]

This is not because of the nature of meetings, but because people seem to have lost the skills to have effective meetings.

Start by sharing an agenda. List the very few things you need to discuss and decide up front. Provide review materials for those who actually prep. During the meeting, record notes on the conversation, record decisions made, and record action items, and publish these records.

If you're not prepared to do this, you aren't prepared to meet. You're just having a chat. That can be done ad-hoc. Call it a chat. Have it over Slack or one-on-one. More than one person requires an agenda, and should result, at a minimum, in a document that adds to the organization's knowledge (even if only of decisions or disagreements).