[Scarblac]

What do you do if you skip such a meeting and a decision you don't like but that you can't weigh in on anymore is taken there?

[asabla]

If it's essential that I attend for such a meeting, the organizer usually reach out.

If not. Then I'll have to either live with the decision or at least give feedback on it.

Nothing is final until you build it (from a developer point of view).

[bee_rider]

Maybe “make a decision about X” should be on the agenda? I bet he’d show up in that case, if he cared about X.

[theamk]

In this context, I don't see an incentive for meeting organizer to create an agenda. They don't care at all about op's opinion about X.

[Scarblac]

Yes, but that's too late now. If everybody else did show up and discussed X, it's only going to look bad for you.

[chongli]

That’s where you have stakeholders within a company and you require sign-off for decisions that affect them.

[andy99]

Lol I've seen this happen, people feeling they're too important to attend meetings and then complaining when something happens in them.

Skipping meetings because they aren't organized the way you like is pretty passive aggressive. I agree with all the criticism about poorly organized meetings, but I think the non prima Donna thing to do is push back on their existence or format, not just skip them. That's part of why a job is a job.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

It's "the boy who called important meeting" - if the first 9 meetings in a series provided zero value, you shouldn't be surprised that someone refuses to attend #10.

[asabla]

It's not about being a prima Donna. It's about business value. Too many meetings over the years should either be better planned, not taken place at all or could have been an email/chat message.

Business value first

[jjj123]

You’re both in agreement that most meetings are unnecessary and that it would be better if meetings had a set agenda.

But the other poster was saying it’s prima donna behavior to skip a meeting without asking the organizer if they can add an agenda first.

[Scarblac]

Meetings with an agenda are generally better, but that doesn't mean meetings without one can't have any business value. If you skip it, you make sure you at least don't contribute to anything decided in it.