Standup Vibe

The general goal of stand-up meetings is to review the essential tasks that are about to begin, in progress, or finished. You should have heard about it already, or you are doing it on daily basis. It all started back in the 1930s when Walter Shewhart developed the (Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) at Bell Labs). This system promoted employee engagement, problem-solving, and critical thinking. The idea was that conflict and freedom were key ingredients for innovation. And that was the start for Standup meetings - and the scrum of course.

But, what are the benefits your team gains from daily stand-up meetings?

Usually, stand-up meetings are one of the best ways to motivate your team. The concept is simple: Standups are brief team meetings, held daily, to cover key aspects of current projects.

And to get the most out of your stand-up meetings, you will want to make them a daily habit. Why?

It’s a short light meeting, and that kind of meeting offers an opportunity for a team to come together for a status check. This will allow everyone to be on the same page and be aware of the changes happening within the business and their job. While conducting the standups, the team will get the feeling of ownership and share important solutions to business problems among the members.?

During these light meetings issues and obstacles are raised - and if no obstacles are raised, you need to ask for them, it can't be Eden all the time -. There are two solutions for any obstacle or new challenges one of your team members faces doing his/her job.

The first solution is providing a short answer for the problem, or a technique to be used to solve this problem based on your experience - and then following up with the team member mid-day and getting his/her feedback on how the solution or the technique worked for him/her.

Another way is to ask a senior member of our team to address this situation - as this member faced the same problem before - and that member will provide a solution S/he tried before and worked.

Have you noticed what happened in the previous two points?

The team members collaborated, they will - over time - create their rhythm. One of the greatest pleasures you will see in any team is team harmony, and you will see it through the standups, and it feels great to witness such a thing. You even can monitor and predict the team's behavior and trend through standups.??

But what about the meeting duration? I keep saying it's a short light meeting, so, the meeting is at max. 10 - 15 minutes depending on the team's size, but 15 minutes is ok.?So, you need to prepare the meeting agenda ahead of the standup as every minute of the meeting is important.

Another thing you will notice is the shared common goal that the team members see during the meetings as all parties share the views and status of the work, and that will increase the ownership of the team members.?

Also, these standups will shorten the duration of all other meetings, as the ongoing activities are shared among the team members throughout the work. And the team is open with each other and more transparent with each other, and that will increase the speed of the work done. This knowledge will expand the project knowledge for the team members, then they will come up with better and more innovative solutions for new obstacles and issues that arise throughout the execution of work.

The team now knows the whole picture, they will innovate and collaborate. All these changes are a direct result of the standup meetings. You can think of the standup meetings as the embodiment of the butterfly effect.