Yes, totally exhausting. Most of what you describe are people issues / classic bike shedding. You should be able to find some ways to shut this down fairly ef

Yes, totally exhausting. Most of what you describe are people issues / classic bike shedding. You should be able to find some ways to shut this down fairly efficiently. "A talks to service B and it should instead be talking to service C": * Yes, I agree! Let me know when you have a PR to look at! * Yes, it really should! Please create a work item for it, and we can prioritize it in the context of our other initiatives! * Should it? What problem does that solve? How will our customers tell the difference? * Let's review our product roadmap and mission statement and see which heading this falls under? * This is our daily standup where we briefly touch on all of our work in progress, please set up a dedicated time for a deep dive on your idea! Those are some polite ways to shut this stuff down and move onto whatever you want to talk about. They might work, and if they don't, you can be sure you have some major personality problems to contend with. I'm no psychologist... but I think a lot of people that indulge in this stuff just want to be heard, and in some cases want to rearrange deck chairs so it looks like they're taking action and getting stuff done. Ultimately you need to find a way to move the discussion whatever you find important and stimulating, and not let these folks set the agenda.