As with many things, it depends on the team. Some teams and people really do seem to need some amount of daily direction to have confidence in the work they are doing, and that does have a meaningful impact on productivity.

My bias is always to only participate in frequent recurring meetings as a last resort, but sometimes they seem to be necessary.

One of my basic philosophies, when I ran a team, was “No regularly-scheduled meetings.” Every meeting needed a specific goal and need.

But I worked for a Japanese company, and they take meetings very seriously.

One of my employees suggested daily standups. I tried to support my employees, when they suggested new stuff, so I said “let’s give it a try.”

The Japanese Liaison really liked the idea, but it needed just a little tweak…

In a short time, we were having hour-long meetings every Friday at lunchtime.