Daily Meeting at its finest. 5 things to avoid on daily stand-ups.

The practice of daily meeting is now widespread throughout the whole world. Developers call it "Daily Scrum" or "daily stand-ups", this ritual is a real game-changer. 

Originally, this practice was inspired by soccer team's ritual of getting players prepared for the game. Jeff Sutherland has outlined that his developers' team has started looking for a ritual that would enable them to supercharge each other (just like the soccer players did).

Doing this research they discovered that a single Borland Software Corporation developerwas able to create a 1000 lines of code per week! What's the secret? They had daily meetings.

Although, a daily meeting at Borland lasted at least one hour. In today's reality that's way too long. Thus, Jeff's team has developed some rules to make communication more effective. That's how Daily Scrum was born.

Rules that turn a daily meeting into a Daily Scrum:

1. Regularity. The meeting has to be held at the same time every day and all team members must be present. If someone is absent - you will not be able to create a proper communication. Doesn't matter what time you choose for the meeting, it just has to be the same time daily. It produces routine and rhythm.
2. Time limit. The optimal duration of a meeting is no longer than 15 minutes. It is enough for the whole team to share main information. If any issue needs more time to be resolved - make a note and schedule an additional meeting with all relevant participants. The goal is to get the most valuable information right away. In order to be timely in such a short time, all participants need to arrive to the meeting ready to share relevant information. 
3. Mutual activity. Everyone has to participate in the discussion, as it is the only way for team members and a project manager to analyze current situation integrally. That is exactly why it is a stand-up meeting. It just keeps the team active and gives them the opportunity to self-organize around challenges and impediments.

Besides these rules, there are 3 questions, that are crucial for project management.

It may sound pretty basic but sticking to them will allow you to create a clear meeting structure, thus optimizing time expenses. When on a daily meeting, every team member should answer the following questions:

• What did you do yesterday?
• What will you do today?
• Are there any obstacles preventing you from doing the work?

Again, don't be confused by the simplicity of these questions. Just test them for a week and you will see how better organized your daily meeting will become.

"I am already practicing Daily Scrum and my team is hardly agile. Moreover, they just hate the ritual. What should I do?"

It is discouraging to know that your team hates an activity which takes only 15 minutes a day, isn't it? Unfortunately, it is a common problem right now, so I will outline what things should be fixed on daily meetings.

What's wrong with your Daily Meetings?

First things first, you should understand that every team is a unique organism and it is merely impossible to find a versatile solution without knowing the specifics of your team. Although, it is easier to determine some key points when implementing the Daily Scrum strategy. 

Secondly, knowing that your team is not satisfied with their meetings practice is actually a good thing. Experienced project managers know that it is a precise signal that something is not working properly. Here's what can be wrong:

• Timing is broken. Meetings can be super annoying when you are interrupted by your tardy teammates. When the ritual is not implemented on time, it will either take longer than 15 minutes or will not be informative for the members who are late. Both options are team management failure. 
• Inability to listen. It's quite a common situation when a team is forced to participate in a discussion by a project manager. It causes an interest issue, when everyone is just focused on stating reporting their results and stating daily tasks. This happens a lot to tired teams, when team members are bitten, where there is no motivation or common goals. 
• Too professional language. A good team manager always remembers there are different parts of the team at the meeting. Depending on their functions, they have a different language. That is why you have to avoid using only developers' language, that will not be understood by designers, and vice versa. Just one unclear word can "throw" us out of the discussion. 15 minutes of unclear conversations can feel like a complete waste of time for particular team members.

At a first glance, you can think these problems are not relevant to your particular team. It's totally OK, we all know how difficult it is to notice our own flaws ;) 

Although, if you take a closer look at your daily meeting - you would be able to track what exactly is wrong.

When you know your problem - it is time to take some actions! Again, it is difficult to outline a versatile strategy, as you have to consider special features of your team. 

Although, we can crystallize a list of things to avoid, based on the most common problems of daily stand-up meetings. Implementing them would allow you to fix some current issues, as well as prevent new ones.

5 Things that keep your Daily Meetings far from Agile. 

1. Sitting down. Usually, it is extremely important to create comfortable conditions for your team. I am sure that your inner Team Manager is strongly dedicated to making daily meetings as enjoyable as possible. But when it comes to TimeManagement, coziness is the main efficiency-killer. 

Standing up is a great stimulus to make conversations much shorter, so people will share only the essential information. It is good for health too! 

2. Babbling. It is exactly why you need there three questions. Again, the main goal of a daily meeting is to determine the current situation, make sure that everyone is on the same page and to remove obstacles on their early stages. 

Every excessive phrase or too detailed problem description is an unwanted time-consumer, that makes your Daily Scrum less effective, thus less pleasurable for the team. The purpose of daily meeting is to identify obstacles as early as possible.

3. One man stand-ups. A key feature of being agile is self-directed teams. It is a common mistake that a team lead is responsible for the whole stand-up, outlining problems of the whole team. It seems to be time-saving, but even the most caring team lead would not be able to outline all the problems his team is facing. 

Make sure that every team member has their part, as it is the only chance to see the real situation (or at least how it looks from perspective of every member). 

4. Being late. As I have just stated before, broken timings is an enormous threat to daily meetings' effectiveness. Either your team would have to repeat themselves (which would waste more time and make those members angry), or those members, who are late will miss a part of a meeting (which leaves them outside the context).

Both scenarios are a failure, so project managers have to motivate the team to be on time. There are two strategies: incentives the team to be on time or punishments for those who are late. Find your creative ways to motivate your team to arrive on time. Maybe you need to clarify the purpose and importance of the daily scrum.

5. Having the same daily task on a few days in a row. Such a situation can occur when the tasks are too large! Try training the team to divide large tasks into smaller and simple steps. Then it is easier to track the progress and daily scrum makes more sense. 

These situations can also occur because of obstacles. A project manager should focus the team on it and find out all the obstacles. Once it is done, a team should do their best to solve them. 

Sometimes, it is quite difficult for people to admit they are not doing well by themselves and to reach out for help. Fortunately, it can be easily detected on daily meetings.

To sum it up, I would like to say: Use short Daily Stand-up meetings to focus your team on the project goals. Create rhythm and routine.

Increase your team's productivity with Scrum techniques even if you don't work by Agile methodology.

It is much easier to implement Scrum techniques when there is someone who would share your team's specifics before and during the project.

If you need a consultation or just have any questions - feel free to connect me!

I invite you to visit my website!