Over the weekend, a colleague in the in open space retreat I attended suggested a method for communicating project status across a team without long, inefficient update meetings.
At the begining of each day, the project team (say 20 people) get together, and in the space of 15 minutes, everyone gives a brief update of what they’re working on and any problems they are encountering - while standing - no sitting allowed. People speak up if they are able to help, but no solutions are offered in the meeting.
Results: Everyone is informed about what others are worked upon, and connections form automatically to bring people together without wasting everyone’s time.