A new take on remote/hybrid standups
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A new take on remote/hybrid standups
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Re: A new take on remote/hybrid standups
#2I am curious about your thoughts on this approach to standups. Excusing the self promo of calling it a Rally, do you think adding in some time before or after your standup has been useful to bring your teams together? Do you think adding more people to a dedicated meeting with multiple breakout functions like Rally is a useful way to improve cross company collaboration? Are the problems of connecting and cross collaborating real problems your remote teams are facing?
Re: A new take on remote/hybrid standups
#3I thought this was from Rally, the company that makes Scrum software (now owned by Broadcom it appears), instead of from Rally, the company that makes Scrum software. Can't believe you're not walking into a trademark war with a much larger company.
Re: A new take on remote/hybrid standups
#4We dont use Rally, but my team has essentially always done this and its been very healthy for us. Even on rough days, people join standup and its like catching up with your friends after a long day at work, except they all _get_ what you do and they can constructively work together to "unstuck" whoever needs it.
If your scrum is about tickets and not about people, I think you're missing the point of "keeping the team in sync".
Re: A new take on remote/hybrid standups
#5Standups are normally short, and meant to be short so people don't ramble on and everyone can go back to their work. I hate standups because it's mostly treated as an agile 'ceremony', and that there are better ways to relieve blockers a.k.a communication via Slack or Teams or other means.
Taking 30-60 minutes to do a Rally is, forgive me for being skeptical, worse than a traditional standup in that it takes up more time, and requires everyone to buy in to the idea and that your team comprises of only extroverts - something that a traditional standup already has a problem with.
Re: A new take on remote/hybrid standups
#6> Reframe the purpose of the standup so its not purely about work but about catching up and hanging out as well.
I like to chat after work, if I have time. I like to joke, laugh, have idle chatter with co-workers if/when we pair on things. (especially during deploys or compile cycles)
I do not want to be forced to schedule "social time". Social activity is fluid for me, and I can 'fake it' if necessary, but needing to fake it 4/5 days is just silly.
I'm not a cave-dweller either. I was an educator (teenagers, then graduate level), I've spoken at dozens of conferences, I run two active local clubs.
If a company forced "rallies" on me, I would unequivocally leave.
Re: A new take on remote/hybrid standups
#7Having a daily team meeting for mostly unnecessary purposes sounds awful. I admittedly don't primarily do development and don't have daily standups anyway. Once a week team meetings at mutually convenient time--I work across multiple timezones--that can spend some time on what people are up to outside of work are fine. But that's about the limit.
Re: A new take on remote/hybrid standups
#8> Reframe the purpose of the standup so its not purely about work but about catching up and hanging out as well. I like to chat after work, if I have time. I like to joke, laugh, have idle chatter with co-workers if/when we pair on things. (especially during deploys or compile cycles) I do not want to be forced to schedule "social time". Social activity is fluid for me, and I can 'fake it' if necessary, but needing t…
Couldn’t agree more about scheduled social time.
Our standups are usually kept short (15 min or less total) which is usually more than enough and if there’s anything that needs more time then the ones who needs to be involved schedule their own meeting outside of that.
We do however have an open Teams chat where people jump in and drop out all through the day just to hang out or throw out simple questions. Even had some nice chats and laughs with coworkers while doing the evening chores.
Re: A new take on remote/hybrid standups
#9I've done every conceivable version of "agile" and "standups" over the years. The best shape, and the best teams that I've worked on do:
1. Standup - 10-15m (face time) Monday / Wednesday 2. Async (Slack channel text) Tuesday / Thursday 3. Planning - 30m-1h (face time) Friday 4. A rotating "lead" or "on-call" or "captain" for the week who organizes these things and interfaces with other team's standups
This, in combination with your work queue (ticketing / kanban board / issues / etc) is the most streamlined approach I've seen that works. You can certainly add more ceremonies, but I find the constant retrospectives of other systems too negative and depressing, and too much of a distraction.
"Rally" is not a new take on standups, it's just scrum with a friendly coat of paint on top IMO. One thing that rubs me the wrong way about "Rally" in particular is the forced-socialization ideas. When I'm at work, I'm at work. Sometimes, there's people at work that I'm not friends with, but I am going to work with them because I'm a professional and I get the job done. Don't force people to be friendly. It's kind of toxic, and forces people to hide their opinions and play politics more than is necessary.
Re: A new take on remote/hybrid standups
#10This sounds like such a nightmare. Why would anyone subject their team to this?
“You know how stand ups can feel like a waste of time? What if we made them waste even more time? Managers will love it.”