I've joked with a few project managers, "If you don't like meetings, you're in the wrong field." A friend used to tease me about having meetings to plan meetings about meetings. While this may reflect a reality many of us have lived, there is also truth in the idea that not everything needs to be a meeting.
I'm in a couple different weekly management meetings and one change we're trying to make is to submit and read status updates in advance, skip the status readouts during the meeting, and focus on actionable items, open questions, and decisions. We're getting better, but it can be hard to break old habits.
What steps have you taken to reduce the number of meetings on your projects, or to make your meetings more effective?
Standup meetings are a good way to keep them on point as folks tend to tire out quickly!
Having an agenda, sticking to it, and using a parking lot effectively also help.
And, finally, make sure that a meeting is actually the best tool for achieving the objective.
Kiron Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Great question — because not all meetings serve the same purpose. In practice, I see two very different meeting scenarios, and each needs different rules.
Regular project / management meetings
The problem is rarely too many meetings, it’s unclear purpose and poor work design.
What helps: • Agenda with intent (inform, decide, resolve, align) • Pre-reads as a rule, not a suggestion • Time-boxed topics with a clear timekeeper • Clear roles (facilitator, timekeeper, note-taker — often AI) • Decision-driven outcomes and fewer people by default
When teams clearly separate information sharing from decision making, meetings become shorter and far more effective.
Urgent operational meetings
These are a different species.
Here, the goal isn’t alignment or status — it’s stability and decision: • Problem first, meeting second • Small, empowered group only • One problem per meeting • Short, time-boxed cycles (15–30 min) • Clear decision authority and visible next actions
In healthy systems, urgent meetings are signals, not habits.
They reveal where processes, capacity, or decision boundaries are weak.
Good regular meetings reduce how often urgent ones are needed.
And when urgency does arise, handling it well prevents recurrence.
How do you distinguish between “normal mode” and “incident mode” meetings on your projects? Saving Changes...
Meetings pile up fast if we're not careful. If an update can be shared async, we don’t book a meeting for it. Also, we keep meetings only for decisions or blockers. No agenda? No meeting. Saving Changes...
In addition to the perspectives shared by my PMI fellows, I have observed that being transparent with team members about our intentions improves efficiency and demonstrates respect. This is an approach I adopted early in my time with my previous employer.
In Microsoft Outlook, this can be configured as follows: go to File, then Options, and select Calendar. From there, adjust the permissions for viewing free/busy information by selecting Free/Busy Options. For example, you can allow colleagues within your organization to view full details of your calendar. Under Other Free/Busy Options, you can also define the time range - such as several months - for which your free/busy information is visible. Saving Changes...
We tried to keep meetings for decision-making and others have shared some good tips and suggestions. For information sharing, we had the relevant people record a short video of what they would have shared during a meeting and then that was shared in our teams channel. Project members were able to watch it if interested or relevant, and questions or comments were handled asynchronously in the teams channel. Saving Changes...
Thanks for your question, Aaron, my first response on this forum.
It is an interesting and a valid question. Meetings are a necessary evil. Necessary to collaborate effectively with the team members and evil in a way that meetings eat up the productive hours of work.
In an organisation, meetings consume the maximum resources (manhours and cost) and if it is not effective, it acts as a double edged sword. When schedule slips, leading to more meeting which inturn leads to more delays. Coming to the necessity of the meetings, it is about how to get the meetings quite effective. (will skip the topics listed by the other team members) The Team members needs to take the meetings seriously. The agenda shall cover topics that requires a meeting (many issues can be resolved by other means) 1) Start on-time 2) No distractions (Phone, checking emails, chit-chats etc) 3) Come prepared (check the previous meeting minutes or action registers) 4) If meetings are short, organise a stand-up meetings (no coffee, biscuits etc.) 5) Get the team members to provide the updates to actions ahead of the meeting. 6) Update meeting minutes online and issue actions, as part of the meeting 6) Close the meeting on-time and share the meeting minutes / action register straightaway.
Had effectively followed the above.
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1 reply by Aaron Porter
Dec 19, 2025 11:31 AM
Aaron Porter
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Thanks for your reply, Sundar Chellamani. Your point about manhours and cost is an important one. Even though we don't get internal bills for people's time spent in meetings (wouldn't that be interesting?), we should make sure that meetings are an effective use of people's time.
I also like your point about Team members needing to take meetings seriously. Some people just don't like meetings, so even if a meeting was the best use of their time from a project and business perspective, they'd still rather be back at their desk "working". You can't please everyone, but you can do your best to make meetings meaningful.
Thanks for your question, Aaron, my first response on this forum.
It is an interesting and a valid question. Meetings are a necessary evil. Necessary to collaborate effectively with the team members and evil in a way that meetings eat up the productive hours of work.
In an organisation, meetings consume the maximum resources (manhours and cost) and if it is not effective, it acts as a double edged sword. When schedule slips, leading to more meeting which inturn leads to more delays. Coming to the necessity of the meetings, it is about how to get the meetings quite effective. (will skip the topics listed by the other team members) The Team members needs to take the meetings seriously. The agenda shall cover topics that requires a meeting (many issues can be resolved by other means) 1) Start on-time 2) No distractions (Phone, checking emails, chit-chats etc) 3) Come prepared (check the previous meeting minutes or action registers) 4) If meetings are short, organise a stand-up meetings (no coffee, biscuits etc.) 5) Get the team members to provide the updates to actions ahead of the meeting. 6) Update meeting minutes online and issue actions, as part of the meeting 6) Close the meeting on-time and share the meeting minutes / action register straightaway.
Had effectively followed the above.
Thanks for your reply, Sundar Chellamani. Your point about manhours and cost is an important one. Even though we don't get internal bills for people's time spent in meetings (wouldn't that be interesting?), we should make sure that meetings are an effective use of people's time.
I also like your point about Team members needing to take meetings seriously. Some people just don't like meetings, so even if a meeting was the best use of their time from a project and business perspective, they'd still rather be back at their desk "working". You can't please everyone, but you can do your best to make meetings meaningful. Saving Changes...
Hello Aaron, thanks for your reply. We did some estimation of manhours spent on a project, the staggering number of hours spent was in team meetings and secondly people searching for details in documents or emals. For sure, we cant please everyone, getting the best from a meeting requires self-discipline and strong leadership. Saving Changes...
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