Your Daily Leadership Meeting… or the 30-minute Marathon

Earlier in my career, I was determined to understand every detail and every discipline of every project I led. That said, as projects scaled in size, this wasn’t always possible.

And as my leadership experience grew, I recognized that my role on large developments was to build a great team, set program direction, then remove barriers to execution.

I always liked the leadership practice of conducting a daily standup. However, what does this meeting look like when you’re an enterprise leader with a development effort spanning 36 teams across five major areas?

Here’s the thirty-minute, four-part meeting I used at the start of every day. ?The pace is fast, but it worked. (I like to think of it as a ‘scrum of scrum’ meeting… before we even knew what that was ;-).

1. Leadership Context

This is your time to flow-down communications from senior leadership, consider opportunities for collaboration with other groups, and to discuss internal challenges. ?Take three minutes – be brief. Remember, your purpose is to develop awareness, not detailed understanding.

2. Team Leader Reports

Each team leader gets three minutes to update the group on new execution barriers, any changes to risks or issues, and to request help needed.?The team leaders need to be prepared and really know their material. If you have five teams reporting, this takes 15 minutes, and takes about half the meeting.

3. Team Special Topic

Once a week in turn, each team gets six-minutes to highlight something going on within their group.?Focus is on a topic that provides greater insight for other teams, e.g., recognizing success, opportunities for improvement, lessons learned, new risks or issues.?Think of this as a mini-deep dive. Again, the intent here is to increase collaborative awareness.

4. Leadership Message

Close the meeting with some strong leadership messages from you. It’s important that the team hears you say it. Focus on key initiatives with meaningful impact to overall performance, e.g., driving effective outcomes, increasing horizontal efficiency, and collaboration to improve first time quality.

Leadership Lessons

As an enterprise leader, I also used this meeting to grow leadership on the team.?Each day a different leader on the team would run the meeting. I participated to share context and leadership lessons, but emerging leaders would get the opportunity to grow their collaborative experience.

Also, when I had to miss a meeting (every now and then), the operating rhythm didn’t need to change.?

Finally, realize that from time to time, you’ll cover an issue that requires a deeper treatment.?I always blocked off thirty minutes after that standup meeting for anyone needing more time or more help.

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