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Ask HN: Does anyone else have anxiety during standup?

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Ask HN: Does anyone else have anxiety during standup?

#1

Post by ryanchoi51 »

As a software engineer, I have 1-2 stand ups per day, 30 minutes each. One with the product and eng team and another with just engineers. The product standup includes directors, executives and managers. We go through three things: What we did yesterday, what we are doing today and if there are there any issues.

I’m having trouble coming up with meaningful updates and constantly question if im doing enough work or providing enough value compared to my coworkers - even if im delivering the work being asked. Sometimes my updates are very brief but my coworkers are quite long and detailed and I feel the team may judge me for the amount of work im doing. It feels like an added stress on top of the actual work and takes up energy in the day.

How do you deal with the stress of standup anxiety? Am I just overthinking?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else have anxiety during standup?

#2

Post by jstx1 »

Not really advice, just sympathies from me - having to do this twice a day, every day is a pain. 2-3 standups a week is a sweet spot imo. Doing it every day is a waste of time and it gives everyone an incentive to talk about things that are irrelevant which makes the whole thing even more of a waste of time. So maybe that's the advice - learn to become comfortable with talking about insignificant crap because that's the incentive they're giving you.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else have anxiety during standup?

#4

Post by j0li0t »

I would suggest you try to distill a framework for your updates based on updates by your colleagues you find informative, to the point, ...

Something like: I achieved [this] by doing [that] which leads to [value/progress].

On the other hand, I am a product manager and I do not need that much technical detail during standups from engineers - I am mainly interested in learning if the task is progressing according to original plan and if not, how do we need to adjust the sprint plan.

Standups should be done standing up so that people are annoyed if they run long so being brief is a plus in my eyes.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else have anxiety during standup?

#6

Post by jameal »

Maybe you are overthinking it. Do you have a good relationship with your manager? Ask for their advice and for feedback.

Length and detail of updates in standup isn't a good metric for you to judge your value. Direct feedback is better, and any company worth their salt will get that feedback to you in a timely manner.

If you are making an honest and sincere effort, you have no need to be anxious. But be proactive about asking for feedback and support when you need it.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else have anxiety during standup?

#7

Post by virtueman »

This is the point of standup. Give the worker anxiety and pressure him to do more work. During my years and years of standup, I never learned anything useful and I doubt anyone else did either.

The good news is that management generally doesn't understand the low level details, so you can project confidence while using technical jargon to make them think you are far more productive than is the reality. It's really just a performance.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else have anxiety during standup?

#8

Post by jmathai »

I created this github project a while back to help with this exact issue. I shared it with the org when I left - not something I would normally do but my team definitely needed the laugh.

It will automatically reassign any jiras assigned to you to a random teammate.

It's named after a ridiculous email management sent where they needed all hands on deck (i.e. weekends) to get a project done.

https://github.com/jmathai/all-hands-on-deck

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else have anxiety during standup?

#9

Post by idopmstuff »

I'm a PM and I have anxiety during standups. I think it mostly stems from the fact that I have perpetual anxiety that I've forgotten something that someone needed from me and am holding them up. (Ironically, or perhaps very logically, because of this anxiety I virtually never forget anything and block anyone because I have a detailed and redundant note-taking system that makes sure I do everything I need to.)

So yeah, I think it's just common to have some anxiety when you're up in front of your peers doing anything at work.

As for the length of your updates, let's just be clear that you're the one doing it right and everyone else is doing it wrong. There's cultural variance in how standups work, but generally the correct thing is that you get through the basic update quickly and then get into details as needed with the appropriate subset of people once updates are done. My standups right now are running long because of 1-2 people who just go on for too long or start trying to talking through solutions during their updates, so I'm having to walk the line between not wanting to nag every day but also making sure we're keeping the time under control.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else have anxiety during standup?

#10

Post by penjelly »

i write out my updates as a way of planning my own day and taking stock of the previous, i consider it more of an exercise for myself than anyone else. I dont get nervous unless i got nothing done and have no good reason for why (which almost never happens).

chances are most of the rest of the standup are focused on themselves anyway

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