Is Scrum Causing Us to Spend More Time in Meetings?

April, 2025

Have we introduced a lot of unnecessary meetings with Scrum? A friend once said, “Scrum has ensured that developers will be involved in at least one meeting a day and can go up to three meetings.” That is, in a way, true. In fact, I’ve seen a Scrum team that conducts sprint planning for the next sprint on the same day the current sprint ends. That means four meetings in a single day: starting with a Daily Scrum, followed by a Sprint Review by noon, a Sprint Retrospective in the afternoon, and then Sprint Planning.

Phew—that’s a lot! Isn’t it? Or is it really too much? Let’s dig deeper.

Time Spent in Meetings by a Typical Software Engineer

Let’s keep Scrum aside for a moment and look at how much time an average software engineer spends in meetings.

According to a study conducted by Clockwise, a typical software engineer spends 10.9 hours per week in meetings.

Similarly, GitLab’s DevSecOps Survey revealed that developers spend 33% of their time in meetings—one-third of their workweek. As employees move up the corporate ladder, their meeting time tends to increase, reducing their focus time and negatively impacting productivity.

Are Meetings Necessary?

If you have a group where each member works independently toward individual goals, the team can probably get by without any meetings—aside from occasional social interaction. But in such a case, can we even call them a "team"?

A team is a group of people working toward a shared goal. For that to happen, they need to collaborate, discuss, align on direction, resolve issues, and build consensus—and meetings are a part of that.

Modern tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or group chats can help reduce or even eliminate some meetings, but they’re not a replacement for meetings that require human interaction. For example, during a Sprint Review, the body language of stakeholders during the demo often reveals whether the product meets their expectations. There are subtle cues we pick up through face-to-face interaction—things left unsaid—that are often lost in asynchronous communication.

Meetings in Scrum

The Scrum framework mandates four ceremonies (or events), each of which is timeboxed—that is, limited to a maximum duration:

• Sprint Planning (once per sprint): 2 hours per week of sprint duration
• Daily Scrum: 15 minutes per day → 1.25 hours per week
• Sprint Review (once per sprint): 1 hour per week of sprint duration
• Sprint Retrospective (once per sprint): 45 minutes per week of sprint duration

So, the maximum time allowed for Scrum meetings is under 5 hours per week.

Remember, these are maximum durations. As the team matures, they usually become more efficient and complete meetings well under the timebox.

If the team is already aligned through group chats or async updates, they can use the Daily Scrum to discuss blockers or course corrections—and wrap up in less than 15 minutes.

If Scrum Feels Like Too Many Meetings, Something Might Be Wrong

If a Scrum team feels overwhelmed by meetings, chances are there’s a problem in how Scrum is being implemented. Here are some anti-patterns to watch out for:

• Meetings lose their true purpose
  Daily Scrum turns into a detailed status update. Sprint Planning is used for backlog refinement.
• No adherence to timeboxing
  Meetings regularly go beyond their allotted time.
• Wrong people in the room
  For example, management folks not part of the Scrum Team join and derail discussions.
• Improper team sizing
  Scrum recommends teams of 7 ± 2. Larger teams lead to more coordination overhead and longer meetings.
• Non-Scrum meetings disguised as Scrum
  Some organizations adopt Scrum in name but continue waterfall practices, introducing additional meetings masked as Scrum events.

Conclusion

Scrum itself does not increase the number of meetings or the time spent in them. In fact, the total time allocated for Scrum events is often less than the time we spend on coffee breaks in a week!

Scrum provides a structured, timeboxed framework that helps control how much time is spent in meetings. If you find that meeting time is ballooning, it's likely due to misapplication of Scrum practices—and that’s something worth addressing.