[roenxi]

It depends a lot on the meeting. If the meeting is scoping work (and with a clear agenda), important/rare context or honest feedback then the developer being involved will increase the likelihood of the project succeeding. If the meeting is status reports or other requests for information then maybe block them from going.

The issue is that the person developing needs access to as much real data as possible (which may be found in a meeting) but as much shielding from the scar tissue of bureaucracy as possible. Bureaucrats should spend time talking to team leads, developers should spend time talking to people with real problems that need solving. The dividing line between those two things involves judgement. And some projects developer productivity is guaranteed to be low from the get go and their meeting attendance barely matters (eg, how developers spent their time prior to the project being re-scoped isn't so impactful).