The Next Level stand-up

Working with agile since 2013, I have probably participated in more than 1,500 stand-up meetings by now, and in my experience the stand-up has the potential to make or break an agile team.

Although the traditional approach of asking three questions for each person in the team (What did you do yesterday?, What will you do today?, Do you have any impediments?) is a good starting point, I have encountered very few teams who reflect on how they could improve upon it - and in the rare occasions where they do, their focus is more on how to succeed with the format (finish within the timebox) than how to improve the outcome of the meeting.

Seeing as even the Scrum Guide has now removed the three questions, I would love to share the improvements I have made across multiple teams and organizations, mainly to inspire and encourage you to start improving the stand-up in your context.

The issues I have experienced surrounding the traditional approach to the stand-up

1. Once the sprint has started, the mutual priority of the user stories is forgotten. This means that if something is not finished within the sprint, it is more likely to be the technically least interesting user stories rather than the lowest priorities.
2. Most people have a feeling that only the expert within the field is allowed to work on a specific user story (even if they are not pre-assigned to it). This means one person can be swamped, while others are scouting for work outside of the sprint.
3. The stand-up evolves around the individual rather than the team. This means most people focus on remembering what they did the day before and hoarding enough work to keep themselves busy rather than listening and collaborating towards a common goal.
4. Between stand-up’s, people work on their own, designated user stories. This means stand-up becomes the only place where dialogue happens, instead of acting like a minimum fail-safe.
5. If the timebox of 15 minutes runs out, then the result will either be (A) The random remaining people do not get a chance to speak (B) The stand-up becomes rushed, with just enough time to state your status (C) The stand-up continues way beyond the timebox.

My most successful improvements

The context

I rename the stand-up to microplanning. This opens the team’s mind to see it as something different than what they have been doing so far, and whereas micromanagement refers to someone else adjusting and coordinating the team’s work for the following day, the microplanning is the team doing it for themselves.

I send a recurring reminder to the team 10 minutes prior to the microplanning, where I encourage them to update the status in our task management tool. This is to establish a habit that enables us not to spend the entire microplanning providing verbal status, and instead use the already available status to efficiently mitigate any issues.

I provide the team with an adjusted view of the sprint to give them the necessary information needed to become self-managing. This is done in a dashboard, where I usually hide all the sub-tasks and highlight the acceptance criteria. In addition, I often add an overview of any blocking impediments, their burndown chart, the current sprint goal and previously introduced collaboration techniques.

The microplanning agenda

1. The Scrum Master asks if the team can finish the highest prioritized user story by tomorrow / the end of the week (whatever seems possible, but unlikely).
2. The team discusses and plans how this could be achieved.
3. Repeat 1 and 2 until the timebox runs out or no one is left to help.

Meet-after (if needed)

I invite the team for an additional 15 minutes after every microplanning to make sure no one is booked elsewhere before the dynamic groups working on each user story have finished their plan for the day.

The effects I have seen on my teams

Initially, most teams complain about the approach, demanding that they have two weeks to finish the sprint. But as soon as they realize I am not asking them to finish the sprint earlier, but just to focus and collaborate on the most important user stories first, the whole mindset of the team seem to change:

1. The team follows the priorities throughout the sprint.
2. The team swarms on the highest prioritized user story, which establishes T-shaped profiles.
3. The team have their full attention at the microplanning.
4. Collaboration happens continuously in the dynamic groups.
5. If the timebox runs out, it is the least important user stories we did not talk about. So if someone doesn't get a chance to speak, it is because they are working on something less important than the rest of the team. This can be used as a diagnostics tool to improve your team collaboration going forward.

The measurable impact

• Higher productivity due to increased focus.
• Shorter time-to-market due to swarming and following the priorities.
• Higher quality due to direct communication and fewer handovers.
• More motivated employees due to having a common goal and feeling part of a team.