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An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings

weblog.alexgodin.com

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Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings

#31

Post by donmcc »

chris_mahan wrote: post #16
crazygringo wrote: post #3

I dunno... I feel like if I'm totally honest, there's a good chance I would wind up just ignoring 90% of those e-mails, or at least not reading them carefully enough. For me, I feel like the benefit of a stand-up is exactly that it forces everyone to pay attention and meet for 5 min, not just so that everything important gets communicated, but that everyone knows everyone else heard it. And people can ask important q…

When I notice that people have a habit of ignoring my emails, I instant-message them after I send the email. If that doesn't work, I call them. If that doesn't work I walk over to their desk. If they're not at their desk, or in another building, I email their boss and ask whether the person is taking a day off. Believe it or not, people stopped ignoring my emails.

Why don't you just talk to them face-to-face in the first place?

Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings

#32

Post by mixmastamyk »

Tried this with a wiki page once, it worked pretty well.

Once thing I noticed that I have a lot of information at the end of the day, and not the beginning. First thing in the morning I barely know my name, about the worst time to ask me anything. So I've always found the morning fascination a bit odd.

Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings

#33

Post by mixmastamyk »

reinhardt wrote: post #26
chris_mahan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I notice that people have a habit of ignoring my emails, I instant-message them after I send the email. If that doesn't work, I call them. If that doesn't work I walk over to their desk. If they're not at their desk, or in another building, I email their boss and ask whether the person is taking a day off. Believe it or not, people stopped ignoring my emails.

Good lord I hope this is sarcasm.

He doesn't say this all happens in a thirty minute time frame... it could be over the course of a week.

Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings

#34

Post by chris_mahan »

chris_mahan wrote: post #16
crazygringo wrote: post #3

I dunno... I feel like if I'm totally honest, there's a good chance I would wind up just ignoring 90% of those e-mails, or at least not reading them carefully enough. For me, I feel like the benefit of a stand-up is exactly that it forces everyone to pay attention and meet for 5 min, not just so that everything important gets communicated, but that everyone knows everyone else heard it. And people can ask important q…

When I notice that people have a habit of ignoring my emails, I instant-message them after I send the email. If that doesn't work, I call them. If that doesn't work I walk over to their desk. If they're not at their desk, or in another building, I email their boss and ask whether the person is taking a day off. Believe it or not, people stopped ignoring my emails.

I give people ample time to respond to email. Sometimes several days. This escalation only happens to people who ignore emails.

If you're going to ignore emails at work, be prepared for the consequences.

If you don't want me to email you, tell me where else to go for the info. If you want to hoard knowledge, and you don't want to answer emails, you're gonna get the escalation.

Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings

#35

Post by chris_mahan »

donmcc wrote: post #31
chris_mahan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I notice that people have a habit of ignoring my emails, I instant-message them after I send the email. If that doesn't work, I call them. If that doesn't work I walk over to their desk. If they're not at their desk, or in another building, I email their boss and ask whether the person is taking a day off. Believe it or not, people stopped ignoring my emails.

Why don't you just talk to them face-to-face in the first place?

I send and receive dozens of emails each day. If I had to face-to-face, I would have no time for actual work. Also, probably half of the people I email aren't in the same building, but require driving 20 minutes at least. Some are on the other side of the US. Hard to do face-to-face then!

Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings

#36

Post by flurdy »

lenjaffe wrote: post #12

when the daily, morning status meeting started being referred toas 'the stand-up', concepts got blurred. a meeting is held as a stand-up in order to encourage brevity. so the poster is looking for alternatives to morning status meetings, not stand-up meetings. stand-up meetings are just fine. thankyouverymuch

Agree. Stand ups are about syncing up, focus and helping each other, not status reporting to line management. I ranted about it this a few days ago: http://blog.flurdy.com/2013/04/i-dont-care-what-you-did-yest...

Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings

#39

Post by chris_mahan »

lucisferre wrote: post #19
chris_mahan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do standups several times per day, one on one with the people we need to talk to. It's called conversation.

Heh, no kidding. Edit: Looks like this "conversation" idea may have jumped the shark too. Management consultants are already trying to horn in on this technique ( http://www.amazon.ca/The-Art-Conversation-Neglected-Pleasure... ). Pretty soon we'll need "conversation masters" and some sort of certification process.

Homo Sapiens already has already mastered conversation.

Re: An Alternative to Stand-up Meetings

#40

Post by BoyWizard »

I feel the thing that many people are missing is that 10 minutes 'stand-up' meetings every morning are important because they encourage 'accidental communication'. You might be debugging something that just broke, and remember, 'Oh John said this morning that his main priority today was to add some code to XYZ, which affects this, so I'll just check with him'.

Contrary to popular opinion on HN, regular communication is important for most (if not all) business activities.

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