The meetings were scheduled for Blair House, the government guest property across from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Obama and Biden walked over together on Friday evening, chatting as they went, to join their colleagues for dinner. Obama returned to the White House about four hours later, again strolling across the avenue with his press secretary, Robert Gibbs.
Asked how the meeting went, Obama said: "It went fine."
Several hours of meetings were scheduled for Saturday, though Obama was not expected to attend. The president was departing Saturday morning for a weekend at Camp David. Biden was to deliver remarks to open the second day of meetings.
"It's an opportunity for the president and the vice president, senior White House staff and Cabinet officials all to get together and talk about the agendas, both past and forward," Gibbs said.
The dinner Friday and meetings Saturday were closed to the media.
Gibbs said virtually every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has conducted a similar assessment.
"It's not a mid-course correction or a report card," he said. "It's just an opportunity for everyone to get together on hopefully a little bit less hectic pace, rather than seeing each other at a meeting for 15 or 30 minutes."
