Meetings advance problem-solving insofar as they inform the code eventually typed into vim.
Some problems genuinely require a lot of this kind of deliberation, but most don’t. Some meetings aimed at this kind of deliberation make meaningful progress, but most don’t. The person who can terminate or pre-empt an inflated or stalled conversation with working code is extremely valuable.
Even if that code is not the ultimate solution, it has a definite shape and objective properties that can be investigated and weighed, which brings rigor to discussions that get lost in abstraction.
Organizational politics and entropy also tend to create too much talking: it is good for your career to present the work you’re doing as requiring a lot of collaboration (whether or not it does), it is easier to spitball in meetings than to actually solve problems (if you even have the skills), and you have to go to all the meetings you’re invited to (while coding time gets ruthlessly prioritized).
Some problems genuinely require a lot of this kind of deliberation, but most don’t. Some meetings aimed at this kind of deliberation make meaningful progress, but most don’t. The person who can terminate or pre-empt an inflated or stalled conversation with working code is extremely valuable.
Even if that code is not the ultimate solution, it has a definite shape and objective properties that can be investigated and weighed, which brings rigor to discussions that get lost in abstraction.
Organizational politics and entropy also tend to create too much talking: it is good for your career to present the work you’re doing as requiring a lot of collaboration (whether or not it does), it is easier to spitball in meetings than to actually solve problems (if you even have the skills), and you have to go to all the meetings you’re invited to (while coding time gets ruthlessly prioritized).