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How can you make your daily standup effective? Most of us think of standup as short status meetings; more of a formality for agile teams. However, doing it right has long lasting effects. Question is - How? Daily stand up can be made effective by - 1. Standing up: Yes, seems obvious. But I have witnessed teams seated in chair in meeting rooms & conducting these. Standing up makes you more attentive & body language also improves. 2. Keep environment distraction free: I have been part of teams that conducted agile meetings on floor with people passing around them, even from in between them. While we often laugh about it, this definitely distracts team from focus of meeting, which is knowing about shared work progress. 3. Come prepared: Very important. Unlike other meetings or presentations where we come prepared about data to share, daily stand ups often seem to be impromptu meetings. Though individuals know about status, their thoughts are scattered all around leading to repetition of share information or missing pieces of important information. Ask team to take time to come prepared for stand ups. Writing pointers to talk about & going about it swiftly, helps. 4. Share more than just answering 3 questions: When answering what you did, what you would do & any blockers or not, it will help team to know things better if you also mention whether you need any help or clarification, if you are blocked, if your work impacts anyone else's work, if you are on track, whether you foresee delays, what would be trigger to raise concern etc. Individuals can form a template & fill as applicable & say things accordingly. A shared excel sheet can be maintained which individuals can update post standup, to keep everyone updated on a daily basis. 5. Seek understanding: Most of us assume that when an individual shares their update, others are listening to it. That's rare. Ask questions. Do others have clear understanding of work progress just shared? Do they have any questions? Is there anything that is unclear? Make it more of a participatory meeting than merely an attending one. 6. Don't just keep it time boxed: Ensuring stand up is effective is as important as keeping it time boxed. I have been part of meetings where initial members went on for minutes while last ones rushed through updates to keep it time boxed. And when initial set of people rushed through as well, we finished in less than 9mins. While its important to be time boxed, focus has to be on sharing work progress, elaborately, in its entirety. 7. Use Round Robin: Don't make your meetings appear plain. Make it interesting. Start with random person each time. Make it more fun by having random chits of numbers & allow each member to pick one. Alternatively, to keep them on their toes to know who's next, drop name chits & pick one at random after each individual's status shared. Try this & team will love it. What else can you add to make daily stand up more effective? #agile #effectivestandup
