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Ask HN: Does anyone use online standup tools?

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Ask HN: Does anyone use online standup tools?

#1
Was curious if anyone had experience/thoughts on online standup tools. I am debating if I should move our team from a typical standup to an online one. I see benefits being, people put more thought into the standup report. Sometimes I see engineers showing up to the standup and having to remember and plan on the go.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use online standup tools?

#3
Our team uses skype for business for our standup. We're spread all around Europe so we don't have the choice of an in-person meeting.

In my opinion they tend to take a little longer than a traditional standup but we do go more in depth when discussing issues we might be having. Usually it takes 15 minutes.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use online standup tools?

#4
Google Hangouts is what my past few teams have used. Wanting people to put "more thought" into their standup report, however, may be a red flag. An update during standup should be brief, and not result in the standup dragging on and on. No one wants to be there any longer than necessary, and if anything specific needs to be discussed, set aside time for that topic and only for the parties that need to be involved.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use online standup tools?

#5
I've seen them being used, eg. the /standup command in hipchat, but not a huge fan. Obviously Skype or similar for remote teams.

TBH I always think of standups as being as informal and brief as possible, and physical interaction promotes better comms within the team.

If it's causing real problems, why not suggest a low-tech solution like keeping notes?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use online standup tools?

#7
We have used Hangouts forever but just started switching to using Slack video calls in a #standup room. The audio and video quality on Slack far exceeds what you get on Google Hangouts. Although we do miss being able to manually dial in a participant that happens to be somewhere that has a spotty data connection. Slack doesn't perform very well in situations where the mobile data is sketchy.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use online standup tools?

#8

I've seen them being used, eg. the /standup command in hipchat, but not a huge fan. Obviously Skype or similar for remote teams. TBH I always think of standups as being as informal and brief as possible, and physical interaction promotes better comms within the team. If it's causing real problems, why not suggest a low-tech solution like keeping notes?

exactly, its not the problems I am worried about. I do think engineers coming to the standup with some thoughts just make the standup exponentially more useful. Totally agree with the informal-ness

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use online standup tools?

#9
post #4

Google Hangouts is what my past few teams have used. Wanting people to put "more thought" into their standup report, however, may be a red flag. An update during standup should be brief, and not result in the standup dragging on and on. No one wants to be there any longer than necessary, and if anything specific needs to be discussed, set aside time for that topic and only for the parties that need to be involved.

agreed, may be more "thought" is not the right word. But have you been in situations when engineers show up and they are struggling to remember what they did yesterday?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use online standup tools?

#10
post #3

Our team uses skype for business for our standup. We're spread all around Europe so we don't have the choice of an in-person meeting. In my opinion they tend to take a little longer than a traditional standup but we do go more in depth when discussing issues we might be having. Usually it takes 15 minutes.

Ours too. They end up being a little longer than I wish they were. Have you guys tried any kind of online tools for this? or would you keep preferring Skype? Something like jell.com
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