Hey Brad I’m already in too many meetings all day and now my boss wants us to do these stand up meetings; What the heck is a stand up meeting?

A stand up meeting in this context is well a meeting where you stand up :-).

Sorry I couldn’t resist. But to answer your question seriously a stand up meeting is really a status update meeting. The  reason you conduct this meeting standing is that its supposed to be a really quick meeting.

Stand up meetings are suppose to address what you said before about being in too many meetings during a work day and not able to spend enough time at your desk typing out code; Which I know is where you’d rather be and where your boss would rather you be too. They do this because they are designed to be quick and efficient.

The Anatomy of The Stand Up Meeting

The Purpose

The purpose of a stand up meeting is to quickly and efficiently update all the players on the status of the project. That is both Chickens and Pigs are welcome to attend and all attends are expected to contribute. In contrast to a weekly update meeting where team members update the team manager on their progress a stand up meeting is about the team updating each other so they can collaborate and help clear impediments.

The Duration

A stand up meeting shouldn’t take longer the 10-15min at the most. When first introducing stand up meetings its a good idea to time box the meeting; Starting a count down timer at the start of the meeting to ensure that it does not run long is a good idea. Eventually your team will get the hang of it; one team I was on had two dozen attendees and the stand up meeting took only 4min!

Frequency

Stand up meetings should be held daily. When I was first introduced to the idea we thought daily would be to much. That is we thought it would equal too much time in meetings and not enough time between meetings to really get enough done in order to have anything to update on.  Well if you can’t get anything done in one day your tasks are probably to big so I’d focus on fixing that vs. pushing out the frequency of your stand up meetings. Secondly the more time between meetings the more you have to say in the meeting which means the meetings run longer (i.e. more time spent in meetings then at your keyboard) and you need to allocate time to prep for your meetings. If you have your meetings daily then you have less to report (quicker meetings) and no prep time is needed because who can’t remember what they did yesterday. Add the fact that now you have daily team collaboration and you’ll see that holding the meeting daily is much more efficient then having it three times a week or weekly.

Start Time

The meeting should start promptly; remember they are suppose to be fast meetings, if everyone is sitting around waiting for stragglers to show up the meeting will start to take as long as a regular sit down meeting. This includes the team manager; the meeting should not be delayed or cancelled because the team manager can’t make it. These meetings are just as much for the team members as it is for the team manager.

One team I was on had the stand up meeting at 9:30am. On that team people started to show up between 9:29 and 9:30. Even if it looked like everyone was there a minute early we still waited for 9:30 sharp to start the meeting. Why? Well its about respecting peoples time, the meeting was at 9:30 not 9:29 its unfair to think that everyone can get to a meeting minutes before they start. That and we found that we were wasting time asking if we were all there and even when we all said yes we think were all here there was usually some one missing who got there on time (9:30) but since we started early missed some of the meeting. We also in contrast didn’t wait for stragglers even if we saw them walking down the hall. The meeting start at 9:30am no sooner and no later.

Location, Location, Location

The meeting should be held in an open space, does not need to be in a meeting room, and would be helpful if it was held near a display or white/cork board so the team can post and refer to different metrics showing the teams progress on their goals. The team should stand in a circle or semi-circle so that everyone can see and hear everyone else.

The Flow

When the meeting is to start someone on the team starts delivering their update. On some teams they decide that the team manager goes first; for others its the team leader/scrum master. One team I was on was a bit more whimsical and said that the last person that showed up before the start of the meeting would go first. That rule also dealt with the question of who goes first if the team manager or leader was absent.

Once the first attendee gives their update the person to their left or right goes next depending on which direction the team choose to go; I was on one team that went clockwise then switched to another team that went counter-clockwise, was a bit dizzying :-).

The meeting is adjourned once all attendees had a chance to speak. Some teams like to mark the end of the meeting with a “go team” cheer.

The Update

Now here is the key part: What does one say when its their turn to speak?

There are only three questions you need to answer and it should be project relates only. Do not go off on tangents or talk about last night episode of the Walking Dead, just answer these three questions and move on. Follow up conversions can be had after the meeting.

1. What did I do yesterday? Short and sweet, just give an update on what you did the day before. Your update should be just the highlights; the most important bullet-points and not a step by step recount of the previous days activities.

Example:
“Yesterday I completed feature X and got it hooked up to the UI, thanks Bob for your help on that.”

2. What do you plan to do today? Again just a quick statement on what task you plan to do today. There shouldn’t be a need to go into detail on the task and if some one asks say you’ll talk to them after the meeting.

Example:
“Today I’m going to start on feature B by writing the unit tests for it; I expect to get them fished by end of day.”

3. Lastly what impediments are you facing if any? Here is where you can ask for help. If your having a problem that is preventing you from completing the task, or starting it for that matter, you bring it up here. The key part however is don’t go into problem solving mode. The stand up meeting is just where you inform everyone that your having a problem and need help, it is not where you solve the problem. Keep your update concise; if you can’t clearly explain the issue in one sentence then don’t try. Just say your having an issue and that you’d like to talk to so and so after the meeting (which is another reason why its nice to have the meeting in the open so you can linger vs. in a meeting room that you could get kick out of).

Example:
“I can’t start feature B however because I don’t have a jig to test the API against. Can I talk to you Fred after the meeting about getting jig time.”

“I’m having issues with framework Y, anyone more familiar with it please see me after the meeting as I need some guidance”

“I found something wired with active focus, anyone interested feel free to stay after the meeting is adjourned.”

Follow the above script and you can clearly get your update communicated to your team in 30 seconds or less.

So that’s what the heck a stand up meeting is; a daily status update meeting meant to not only update the team manager but to also allow the team members to collaborate and clear their own impediments.

Until next time think imaginatively and design creatively