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Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful

progractivity.com

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Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful

#31

Post by scott_w »

kerblang wrote: post #17
taude wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run standups using a Slack plug-in, because my team was in several different time zones. It was really effective. We met once/week in a meeting....

My team does this, with the only downside that people are unlikely to pay attention. It at least satisfies mgmt without getting the team bogged down for an hour. But if there's a problem I already bring it up via online chat, and will at least get private messages from the extremely shy people (which is most of them).

If stand up takes an hour, there’s some real issues there. I have the occasional one take longer but they generally last 5-10 minutes. Anything that needs discussion is taken to separate calls.

Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful

#32

Post by theboywho »

scott_w wrote: post #27
theboywho wrote: post #24

This is an example of when Daniel Kahneman said that people don’t believe in something because there are arguments but believe the arguments because they believe in something. Here’s why I think so: > syncing plans and priorities for the current day Most of the work developers do require syncing multiple times a day, either by slack messages, GitHub comments or pair programming, etc. Waiting for the daily to sync is…

> If you have a blocker and you wait until the daily to say it, you have a bigger problem. Blockers should be notified right away and most team do this over slack or other messaging platforms they use. They should but it doesn’t always happen. Having a stand up makes sure you can get that information into the open. This holds for literally everything. You shouldn’t hold back conversations for your 1-on-1 but, if you…

Having a daily standup might be encouraging people to wait until the daily to mention blockers, which could be harming your team all while you think it’s working

Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful

#34

Post by scott_w »

theboywho wrote: post #32
scott_w wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a blocker and you wait until the daily to say it, you have a bigger problem. Blockers should be notified right away and most team do this over slack or other messaging platforms they use. They should but it doesn’t always happen. Having a stand up makes sure you can get that information into the open. This holds for literally everything. You shouldn’t hold back conversations for your 1-on-1 but, if you…

Having a daily standup might be encouraging people to wait until the daily to mention blockers, which could be harming your team all while you think it’s working

It could but the fact I see conversations on Slack and hear in stand up “person X is already helping me with this” suggests otherwise.

Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful

#35

Post by pan69 »

My teams daily standups are focused around raising issues and blockers, not as an individual status update. Sometimes nobody raises their hand and after 2/3 mins we go our merry way. Sometimes someone raises something that ends up being a 15 min. discussion (if there were no other hands raised, raised hands have priority).

Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful

#36

Post by infamouscow »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #29
CER10TY wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were 5 people total - PO, Scrum Master, 3 devs. Been years since I was in that team but it was expected that everyone would give a lengthy update about the previous day

That's 12 minutes a person. How much time did it take 3 devs to say "I worked on 12343, I plan on working on 12354, no blockers"? I assume it was the PO/SM that drug it out?

Product managers shouldn't be rebranded as "solution managers." The title suggests they can handle solutions, but most lack the chops to solve real problems effectively.

Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful

#38

Post by tamimio »

agentultra wrote: post #19

> Daily stand-ups are a cornerstone of agile software development A cornerstone of micro-management, at best. Daily stand-ups can work when there is no manager present and it's just the people working on what they need to get done.

Thank you! No matter how I explain this simple idea that standups are nothing but micromanagement, it never rings a bell. They might work in very limited situations and scopes, but they are never a generic framework to follow, and I blame Silicon Valley for normalizing it. What is worse is some companies try to force it in engineering work, and not just the software part of engineering, where you could spend a whole two weeks researching some topic. I remember in a previous job a novice manager (who only managed few coops before) tried to force it in a company that built robotics, and later I explained to him that they don't add any value let alone increase productivity. He took it personally and it was the crack that eventually was the reason why I left the company, despite me loving the technical work part.

Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful

#39

Post by thatrandybrown »

I feel so strongly about this topic that I recorded a podcast episode on it with my at the time business partner[1]. I think that maybe the only relevant reason to have a synchronous standup is to align on the biggest problem to solve in the next workday.

A standup of this model goes something like this: what is the goal for the day? What support is needed to make it happen? etc.

[1]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/better-stand-ups/id163... -- skip to about 10:00 to hear the above.

Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful

#40

Post by esafak »

agentultra wrote: post #19

> Daily stand-ups are a cornerstone of agile software development A cornerstone of micro-management, at best. Daily stand-ups can work when there is no manager present and it's just the people working on what they need to get done.

It really depends on how you do it. A standup can just be a way to socialize with your team, and share ideas.
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