The daily stand-up has been the talk of the town in recent years. Seeing the buzz around it, you might have the FOMO (fear of missing out) feeling if you haven’t heard about it before.
Don’t worry! We got you. In this blog, we are going to tell you what exactly is a daily stand-up, what are the best practices for running a daily stand-up meeting, and whether it is a really effective strategy or simply a time-wasting tactic.
So, without any further ado, let’s get into it.
What is a daily stand-up meeting?
The daily stand-up meeting is a short (usually 15 minutes) everyday team meeting, ideally during the working day. Each member of the team needs to participate in it.
In this meeting, these questions are usually asked:
- What has one accomplished since the last meeting?
- What one has to work on until the next meeting?
- What are the obstacles that prevent one from completing the tasks?
Quick and concise questions.
The ultimate goal of the daily stand-up meetings is to get people on the same page for that day to align with what everyone is doing.
Then why is getting criticism?
You might wonder that it sounds simple and brief, so why is this discussion of it being a time-consuming activity? Here are certain common complaints raised by teams across the world:
It is being dragged too long
The ideal length of the daily stand-up should be around 15 minutes and not more than that. However, certain organizations drag it to one hour or even beyond. It kills the overall goal of holding a daily stand-up. It should be short and crisp – just focusing on the previously mentioned three questions.
Any further discussion, queries, and issues should be resolved with the concerned person after the daily stand-up.
Recommended Read: Bad Management Practices that Cause Employee Inefficiency
Some feel it is a waste of time
People believe that there is no point in holding a meet to know who is working on what. It is a sheer waste of time. Above all, you have to wait for everyone to connect and finish before you actually get to work.
What I did yesterday, what I will do today, or the impediments’ stuff does not help boost productivity. Why would you scream your problems to the entire team when you know exactly whom to contact in case of need.
Not easy to get an entire team in one place and at the same time
When you have a large team to handle, holding a daily stand-up is a task in itself. You need to ensure that everybody is punctual in joining the meeting on time so that there is no time wastage. In case a team joins late, it affects the other teams too. Of course, no manager would want that to happen.
And then, there are over-sharers, under-sharers, and under-preparers in the team who forget what they worked on yesterday and are not sure what they will work on today! Not an easy job to get those three questions answered efficiently by each team member – DAILY!
What can be done to tackle these?
So, are we saying that the daily stand-up meetings are just a waste of time and nothing else? Well, not really! If conducted properly, it could help boost the productivity of your teams.
Here are a few suggestions that might work:
Easy access
The access to the daily meet should not be a complicated one – clicking on the invite mail and then signing in to join the meeting.
This means creating a new invite daily. Long route, huh! Rather, you can set up a calendar invite so that team members can pop into the invite on any day and attend the session.
Being punctual
There is no point in wasting 10 minutes rounding up the team to hold a 15-minute meet. Instead, each team member should try to set an example to others by arriving early and ensuring that the meeting starts on time – every day. When everyone arrives on time, the meeting starts on time and ends on time too!
15 minutes should mean 15 minutes
DON’T extend the daily stand-up meet beyond 15 minutes. If any team member has something to ask or share, he can do it after the call with the concerned person. It will save the time of other team members.
The host of the daily meet (generally a project manager) should connect with the senior leader quarterly or monthly to solicit feedback upon improving the daily sessions.
Vary how the daily meet is conducted
A majority of the daily meets are conducted person by person. Tell us what you did yesterday, what you will do today, what’s bothering your work – and then, the next person.
There is no hard and fast rule that you have to conduct it this way only. Why not add your twists to the daily meet to avoid being monotonous? Nobody would love to get up every morning to answer these questions – every day – without any changes!
Wrapping up
The daily stand-up meeting can be a great opportunity to change things for the better within your teams and organizations.
However, when you are holding daily meets, you need to encourage your teams to be self-organizing. Failing to do so will lead to negative outcomes, let alone boosting the productivity within teams.
Recommended Read: One-on-One Meetings: Everything You Should Know
