Do you love status update meetings?
A dozen people logged into a 60-minute status update meeting taking turns to talk about work they have done. By minute 12, two people are clearly checking email. One has dropped off the call, and when someone raises an actual problem that needs input, there is only five minutes left so everyone agrees to “take it offline.”
Sound familiar?
These meetings should be useful. After all, sharing progress and flagging issues is important.
But most status update meetings are painful. They’re long, boring, and filled with information that only one person in the room actually cares about. That person is usually the one arranging the meeting
But they don’t have to be that way.
If you lead or attend regular status update meetings, try this:
✅ Ask if the meeting is even needed.
If the only person who benefits is you, replace it with a written update or 1:1s.
✅ Define the purpose.
Instead of asking for a vague “status,” decide what you actually wan: Risk identification? Timeline review? Decision-making?
✅ Use a simple script.
Help people focus their updates:
- “Here’s the topic”
- “Here’s who it impacts”
- “Here’s what’s changed”
- “Here’s what I need”
✅ Put the most important topics first.
Don’t go around the room just because it’s fair. Start with items that affect the most people or that have the biggest impact.
✅ Avoid the deep-dive trap.
If solving a problem takes more than 2 minutes, assign it as a follow-up. Don’t derail the meeting.
✅ Limit to 3 updates max per person.
If they have more than 3 topics, it’s time for a separate discussion.
✅ Celebrate wins.
Not every update is a problem. Take time to celebrate successes, just keep it short.
✅ Stop the “look what I did” lists.
If there’s no impact and no ask, it doesn’t belong in the meeting.
The result?
✔ The meeting should take less time.
✔ Everyone stays engaged.
✔ The real issues get discussed.
✔ No one wastes time listing things that don’t matter.
You can’t eliminate status meetings. But with a few small changes, you can turn them from calendar clutter into something genuinely useful.
If you found this useful, share it with your team. Who knows, it might just remove some of the pain from everyone’s status update meetings.