After almost 3 decades in the industry I can definitively say that if someone paid me 9-figure salary which came with daily standups I would politely decline
Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful
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Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful
#42> 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.
"micro-management" is not a useful concept, it's just a though-terminating cliche - let's get specific.
The problem with bad stand-ups is usually that they're just "personal status updates" by another name. They're abused as a way for team lead/project manager to "get a feel" for what individuals on the team are doing. Bad managers do this, because they're bad at their jobs. It's literally their job to know what people are doing, where they're at in their various tasks, what's going on with the project. They should be doing that all day, every day - when they're not "managing up". Gathering info in a 15 minute standup is both too short a feedback cycle and too long and nowhere near high enough bandwidth. It's also one of the major reasons stand-ups frequently go off the rails and end up taking so long, in badly run projects. Stopping those derailments is actually supposed to be one of their jobs and should be one of their main priorities during the stand up.
If you're stand-up involves going around the team, one person at a time asking "what did you do yesterday, what are you doing today" - that's a bad stand-up.
Stand-ups should be run from the sprint board - you run through all open tickets for the sprint, asking whoever is assigned to that ticket "what's up with that?" Once you've gong the through the tickets, you're done. No looking forward to next sprint - that's for backlog grooming and planning sessions. No looking backward, that's for retros.
Don't get to talk during the stand-up? Then WTF are you even working on, and why isn't a story in the sprint? That's a question the manager should be asking and resolving - privately, outside of the standup.
Stand-ups are for "visibility of the team, for the team". Not for managers or other wanna be management.
Stand-ups are for telling your teammates "i unstuck this ticket this way, if that's an issue or there's a better way, hit me up after the standup" or "I'm going to be working on X and I don't know anything about that; anyone who can help me, hit me up after the standup".
If your stand-ups aren't like that they're bad stand-ups. Because your manager sucks. Don't worry - most managers suck. Deal with it, get over it; and stop blaming your tools.
Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful
#43Earlier 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?
That takes 2 seconds. But the PO usually expected a detailed breakdown of what went well or bad and what could be improved right then and there. Simply saying "Yeah, I'm doing X, still doing it, bye" would be bad, because you're also not inviting _collaboration_.
Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I meant "Scrum Master".
Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
That takes 2 seconds. But the PO usually expected a detailed breakdown of what went well or bad and what could be improved right then and there. Simply saying "Yeah, I'm doing X, still doing it, bye" would be bad, because you're also not inviting _collaboration_.
> _collaboration_
_micromanagement_
Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful
#46> 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.
"micro-management" is not a useful concept, it's just a though-terminating cliche - let's get specific. The problem with bad stand-ups is usually that they're just "personal status updates" by another name. They're abused as a way for team lead/project manager to "get a feel" for what individuals on the team are doing. Bad managers do this, because they're bad at their jobs. It's literally their job to know what peop…
micromanage (verb): control every part, however small, of (an enterprise or activity).
Managers who insist on stand-ups, insist on being present in them, and insist on managing the the backlog of tasks, assigning tasks, and forcing developers to estimate each one... are micromanaging.
No amount of, "I'm the friendly manager you can trust!" is going to melt the ice that your presence, as a manager, brings into a standup. You control salaries, promotions, and the stress levels of everyone there. It's going to be a conflict every time some one pushes back on your demands. Everything devolves into a status update meant to save face rather than be honest. It's wholly a waste of time.
> Stand-ups are for "visibility of the team, for the team". Not for managers or other wanna be management.
I agree.
Standups are a whole different game when it's a group of developers with a goal who need each other to meet it.
A good manager trusts their team to do this work themselves. If that means standups, cool. If they only need to meetup once a week as a group and people meet impromptu based on what they're working on... fine. As long as the team is shipping and meeting it's goals and milestones, all gravy.
Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful
#47> 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.
That's the opposite of what it's for. It's for communicating what's stopping progress. If everything is going fine, it's over.
Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
It really depends on how you do it. A standup can just be a way to socialize with your team, and share ideas.
That's the opposite of what it's for. It's for communicating what's stopping progress. If everything is going fine, it's over.
It's for whatever you want it to be for.
Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful
#49What I struggle with is that any blockers or delays that I may have, I’ve already signaled in our team chat. And the social pressure against saying “I didn’t do much” is tremendous, and it’s hard for anyone who cannot completely abandon worrying about what others may think of them to admit that, even if they have a reason to do so. An actual progress report meeting 1-2 times a week is so much better.
And that’s fine, just say so and who’s helping you unblock it and move on. The stand up is to make sure nothing gets missed because the conversation that needed to be had didn’t happen.
How does the standup help ensure nothing is missed? Everything is raised actively by individuals. They could have done the same thing through async modes of communication.
Compare this to a weekly progress update meeting that will usually have your project tracker, or Kanban board, or whatever up there so you can actually identify things that may have dropped off everyone’s radars.
Re: Small changes that made our daily stand-ups more useful
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
And that’s fine, just say so and who’s helping you unblock it and move on. The stand up is to make sure nothing gets missed because the conversation that needed to be had didn’t happen.
How does the standup help ensure nothing is missed? Everything is raised actively by individuals. They could have done the same thing through async modes of communication. Compare this to a weekly progress update meeting that will usually have your project tracker, or Kanban board, or whatever up there so you can actually identify things that may have dropped off everyone’s radars.
> Everything is raised actively by individuals. They could have done the same thing through async modes of communication.
Because this doesn’t happen in the real world. People forget to mention things, they get their heads stuck in rabbit holes. A task that’s blocked just withers and dies because nobody actively looks at it. A good standup forces these things to be raised and addressed.
> Compare this to a weekly progress update meeting
The progress meeting is daily, not weekly.