Originally Posted by
Flatballer
I'm still a young engineer, although it does say senior on my title, it sounds more impressive than it is. It's really equivalent to what used to be engineer 3. How long do I have to wait to start skipping and or leaving pointless meetings so that I can actually do the work that the meetings are asking me about doing? I swear I spend more time talking about and planning than actually doing or problem solving. The meeting talking is explaining things that the 3 engineers in the room already know to the 8 project managers who don't understand and never will.
Sorry, it's a bit of a touchy subject at the moment. We inherited the PM mindset from another company, and it's awful. So, much, overhead.
Somewhere between the two extremes (over-planning, no planning) lies the sweet spot.
While it may seem ideal to just "do it", few things can be worse than spending time coming up with a great solution for the wrong problem. Or a solution that is great but not practical, etc.
Some companies handle this well by keeping "foot soldiers" out of most meetings, letting the managers do their job - planning strategy etc.