Developers Hate Meeting But Here's How I Make Mine Useful and short

Let’s be honest most developers and frankly speaking, most humans hate meetings.

As a Digital Project Manager, I have learned that the best way to support a dev team isn’t just managing timelines, it’s knowing when to talk, what to cut off, and how to keep people focused without slowing them down and making the meeting impactful.

Here’s what works for me:

✅ Default to async
I push updates to Notion, Slack or Jira first. Meetings are for alignment, not just reading status updates out loud.

✅ No agenda!!! No meeting !!!
If I can’t clearly write why we are meeting and what we need to decide, I cancel it.

✅ 15- 30 minute max standups
Anything longer is a red flag, either too much detail or unclear priorities.

✅ Let devs run the demo
When possible, I let engineers show their work in sprint reviews. It gives them ownership and cuts fluff.

✅ I take notes, not them
My job is to free up their mental space, not add more overhead.

If you’re a dev, what’s the least annoying thing a PM or coordinator can do?

If you’re a PM, what’s your go to tips for keeping meetings clean, useful, purposeful and short?

Let’s swap ideas. 👇

Comments

[Nathan Tarbert]

Pretty cool honestly, I wish more PMs handled meetings like this