Dev team meetings can sometimes be painfully quiet. It can be like pulling teeth to get everyone speaking, interacting, and seeing value in meetings. If you’re dealing with quiet developers, here are a few different things to keep in mind.

Just going through the motions

Meetings often are like traditions. They exist, but no one can say why or how they started. At one point, a meeting may have been organized for a specific reason. Then it turned into a series of meetings. Maybe additional people were invited for relevant topics. Gradually, it became a recurring meeting that just lived on everyone’s calenders. These meetings are pointless, but because they’ve became a tradition, everyone goes through the motions and just accepts the status quo as part of the job. No one, not even the meeting host, pulls the plug because everyone is just complying.

A meaningless meeting will kill any interest, enthusiasm, or engagement from people. You can’t expect people to participate when they’re all just going through the motions.

Communication styles

Everybody has a preference for communication. Some people opt for async almost exclusively. Others find constant back and forth messages to be inefficient. Writing clearly is hard. Maybe they prefer a quick huddle. Or if they’re not native English speakers, maybe they’re shy about speaking. Personalities, language proficiency, and thinking style all play a role in how people prefer to express themselves.

When you are part of a dev team, you’re contending with different styles and preferences. The meeting might not be the most effective outlet for some team members. Consider ways that you can find a balance in communication channels with individual styles.

Cultural differences 

If you’re working with someone from another country, there are going to be cultural differences.

Small talk is a big part of relationship building and part of doing business in Latin America. Americans tend to want to get down to brass tacks. But what’s universal is that people need to feel comfortable if you want them to speak up. 

An example of another cultural nuance: in Mexico, people are often differential. While you might expect someone to offer up an opinion without any coaxing, some of your teammates from Mexico might wait to be asked.

As the leader of the meeting, you have to be attuned to all of these expectations and perspectives. 

Meeting dynamics

Does the meeting have structure? For example, in daily stands up, a common approach is for each person to share updates on three straightforward questions.

• What did you do yesterday?
• What will you do today?
• What blockers are you facing?

Something so simple can be effective. It keeps the meeting focused and moving along. It’s very matter of fact. You can also timebox each person’s talking time (including yours!) so that you get everyone equally engaged.

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Break the silence or kill the meeting

Assembling a high-performing dev team isn’t just about finding complementary technical skill sets. It’s about facilitating good communication. If you want everyone to lean in and speak up, you need to get to know your team, help them get to know each other, and experiment with collaboration.

If you've tried and tried, but can't spark enthusiasm and consistent participation, there may be bigger issues with team dynamics. Or maybe no one sees value in the meetings. The only way to get to the root of the issue is to form strong relationships with each of your teammates so that you can get candid feedback and frank discussion, which are the goals of a good dev team.