This Meeting Could Have Been an Email

Thirty minutes, nine people, one decision that needed two of them. Multiply the salaries in the room by the half hour and you have spent more than the thing you were deciding was worth.

Synchronous time is the most expensive resource in any engineering org, and we treat it like it is free. A status update is an email. A decision with a clear owner is an email. A document people can read at their own pace and comment on inline is better than an email. A meeting is for the rare case where the answer genuinely has to be argued out loud, in real time, with everyone present.

The test is simple: if you can write the outcome in advance, you did not need the meeting. Send the note. Give people their afternoon back.