Daily 30-minute meetings sounds to me like the antithesis of good management. If you feel like you need 30 minutes of synchronous time per day from your team of engineers, you are not a good manager.

That depends. A "daily group meeting" doesn't sound like a stand up or project management meeting. It sounds like 30 minutes a day to goof off with your work mates. A way to replicate the downtime you naturally have during an on site work day, a way to increase group cohesion by talking shit and playing games.

If that is the case, then they sound like a great manager.

We do 30 minute daily “standup ups” where the “what I’m currently focused on” component lasts for 10 minutes. Our group discussions, that are IC led, that come out of challenges or successes folks are facing, make up the last 20 some days (otherwise we wrap).

Of the 8 hours a day of my work, it’s the least likely to be a waste of time. It’s a great way for our distributed team to stay connected, express interest in work streams, and have a laugh.

Work can be so much more than just optimizing productivity to the nth degree.

"Daily standups" that become status reports where people drone on for 5 or 10 minutes each are not good experiences. My best managers have been fellow engineers that understand this (and also understand what their reports are actually doing.)

> He immediately scheduled a daily group meeting for 30 minutes and it made me feel more involved

It's almost as if there's not a one-size-fits-all. Unlike your comment.

That's a bit unfair. Good management is partially about meeting the needs of the team. Some teams benefit from this sort of thing.

30 min a day? That is the opposite of effective management.