Inaka does daily standups, at 11, in a HipChat room. You should know what you're working on in the morning before then, that gives you time to get some work done, take a 1 minute break and announce what you're doing. It's pretty rare we don't know what that list is anyway but it's a good synchronization point. If something is off or questions ensue, we meet in person.
Standups are Poisonous
41–50 of 66 posts
Re: Standups are Poisonous
#42This guy is seriously suggesting replacing stand-ups with management and paperwork? There's something very wrong here, but that was already clear from the objections. "30 minutes", "action points", "notes", "weekly update"? Seriously, I know that "you're not doing it right" is the standard lame excuse from Scrum-evangelists, but this paints a picture of doing pretty much the opposite of Scrum. Especially the emphasis…
This is exactly how we do things where I work. We're a pretty big team (about 12) and our standups are finished in 10 to 15 minutes. It's strictly time-boxed and we don't go over. If you can't make it, we have a phone set up in the middle of the table for people to call in, or you can email someone on the team and they will say your standup for you.
If this works for you it's awesome, congrats. But what I saw in the past (3 different companies) was more like 30m+ standups, because most people (funny enough especially project managers) tend to talk way too much during standups. Unfortunately.
Re: Standups are Poisonous
#43Solution: each persons update is 60 seconds or less. If you need more ask the parties affected to stay after the standup. Teams should be 7 or less in numbers. This way the PM can properly focus. Follow that ... And it works wonders. Also PMs need to be ruthless about the 60 second rule and with being on time. If your later to the stand up you owed a dollar to there team fund which gets donated to charity quarterly.
PM? Surely you mean the scrum master? :-)
My feeling is that Project Managers would only be involved in daily standups if there was an urgent issue/escalation, or serious team communication issue that they have the ability to help solve. Or as a stand it for the scrum master if they were on leave.
Re: Standups are Poisonous
#44Useless blog post: "X is a dumb idea, when we tried it Y happened which is bad."
Useful blog post: "We tried X expecting Z, but instead Y happened. I wonder what's going on, please chime in."
The mistake here isn't "negativity", it's Z-blindness. It's missing out on an opportunity to revise your model of how the world works, by noting that there is a discrepancy between your expectations and how things actually turned out.
(Of course, the "useful" approach results in less sensational titles, which may be why we see fewer of those.)
Re: Standups are Poisonous
#45One of the most telling things I've ever heard about the daily standup was its a way to get introverted people to speak just once a day...
Re: Standups are Poisonous
#46Wanted to subscribe, no RSS :/
Re: Standups are Poisonous
#47Simple answer: You're doing it wrong. The standup (in Scrum at least) should be three questions everybody answers: What you did yesterday, what you're doing today, any blockers? This should take a team less than 10 minutes easily. These meetings are not supposed to generate actions points, or problem solve, or discuss anything. They are merely supposed to make sure everybody knows what's going on. Follow up specifics…
Right, the group I'm in often will have "coordinating members" join as well, from designers, QA, the PM, even the VP will stop by to see whats going on, and sometimes we get 10-15 people. The only times it takes more than 10 minutes are when there are tons of announcements being made.
Most folks just state what they're doing today, and announce significant deliveries. But not everyone has the instinct to keep it short, especially when asked questions.
Doing this takes some minor training. Someone does need to be active in "gently reminding" people to move the debate/discussion somewhere. (This usually takes the form of, "maybe you should meet at X to hash that out in 15".) Whenever there are new people, you have to get them comfortable asking "I'd like to talk to you about XYZ after the standup". A lot of folks are rather timid at first, and often need to get used to it.
Re: Standups are Poisonous
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly how we do things where I work. We're a pretty big team (about 12) and our standups are finished in 10 to 15 minutes. It's strictly time-boxed and we don't go over. If you can't make it, we have a phone set up in the middle of the table for people to call in, or you can email someone on the team and they will say your standup for you.
If this works for you it's awesome, congrats. But what I saw in the past (3 different companies) was more like 30m+ standups, because most people (funny enough especially project managers) tend to talk way too much during standups. Unfortunately.
Our team made Take-It-Offline flags that we'd wave whenever someone started going off track during standup. The change was immediate, standup time was cut in half. Now people don't even bring their flags, we just raise our hand or quietly say, "TIO!" Once standup's over, those that had items to TIO stick around and talk about them.
Re: Standups are Poisonous
#49If you have a six person team and you all speak for half an hour then you are definitely doing it wrong. You should ideally speak for no more than a couple of minutes. Standups that routinely last longer than 15 minutes need to be corrected. Either split the team, don't have everyone talk every day or find some other way to cut time. An email is not a terrible substitute if someone is working from home, but part of t…
I think the original writer means 30min of wasted time for six people, not 30min ranting per person.
I really hope that was the case, but he did say this:
> 6 person team * 30 minutes = 3 hours lost
Re: Standups are Poisonous
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly how we do things where I work. We're a pretty big team (about 12) and our standups are finished in 10 to 15 minutes. It's strictly time-boxed and we don't go over. If you can't make it, we have a phone set up in the middle of the table for people to call in, or you can email someone on the team and they will say your standup for you.
If this works for you it's awesome, congrats. But what I saw in the past (3 different companies) was more like 30m+ standups, because most people (funny enough especially project managers) tend to talk way too much during standups. Unfortunately.
> project managers
There's your problem. That role is the antithesis of a self organising team. With someone responsible for "managing" that stand up turns into a very expensive way to keep the manager briefed.