Agile in a Flash 29

Successful Stand-up Meetings – The Team

Agile in a Flash by Jeff Langr and Tim Ottinger (card #29)

> All team members stand for the duration

> Each team member shares with the team

– What did I accomplish yesterday?

– What will I accomplish today?

– What obstacles do I have?

> Team coordinator notes obstacles (to be cleared before the next stand-up meeting)

> Break into follow-up meetings as needed

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A stand-up meeting is the first opportunity for the team to get together and begin collaboration for the day. Successful stand-ups are short and to the point and generally follow the rules shown on this card. You actually do stand to help constrain the meetings to five to ten minutes.

Beyond the rules we show here, create your own rules to help keep stand-ups lively but to the point. For example, some teams toss around a token indicating who has the floor. One team we met required newcomers to sing for the group (Jeff sang I Feel Pretty).

Stand-ups are designed for the day-to-day team. It’s important that the team prevent others from derailing the focus of the meeting. Scrum dogmatically requires outsiders to be silent, for example, but you could simply ask offenders to stifle it.

Having tedious stand-ups? Your team is likely avoiding collaborative work. If we each work a story alone, there’s little reason to converse or even listen to one another. You may as well just email a status report and save the time of a standup. Better yet, work as a team and collaborate on delivering a new story every day or so if possible. Your stand-ups will be far more interesting!

Remember that stand-ups are only a starting point for daily team conversation. The meaty dialogue must occur afterward, throughout the day.