Standup Morning Meetings
Friday August 26, 2005 / 14 CommentsMost of the founds of Bright Corner used to work at Sapient where we had standup team meetings everyday. Naturally, we’ve continued that here at Bright Corner. It’s second nature to me now, but after thinking about it, I don’t think it’s as common of a practice as it should be.
What’s the Point?
I’m guessing many of you would run away at the thought of more meetings, but these are amazingly helpful. When you start off the day with everybody giving a heads up on their status it increses communication just enough.
Quick Like a Bunny
The important part is to make sure everybody is standing up and not in front of their computer. If you’re standing up, you’re going to be less likely to waste time, and if you’re not in front of your computer, you’re more likely to pay attention and get something out of the meeting. If these meetings last more than 10 or 15 minutes, you’re covering too much ground.
Example Benefits
- If someone is working on a certain module that may overlap another module that somebody else is working on, both parties become aware of the overlap and can plan for it or work together more efficiently.
- If there is a larger meeting or checkpoint coming up, this is a good chance to make sure everybody has it on their radar.
- When there are issues, they can be brought up and either addressed immediately or escalated appropriately.
- It’s easy to find out if someone is swamped and someone else may be ahead of schedule so that they can load balance and improve the overall progress.
- The meetings generate overall increased awareness of the project and its progress.
Summary
Whether it’s a team of 2 or 20, standup meetings can go a long ways in making the team more productive and efficient. Nobody needs to know exactly what everybody else is working on every single day, but it’s helpful to have a general idea of where everybody else is at so you can adjust accordingly.
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Any chance you could send this as a memo to all the employers I’ve ever had!
Nothing like having an hour long meeting from 3:30-4:30 and then another on at 9:00am the next morning asking what we got done in the 30 minutes since we last met! ;) chrispian
Garrett – I agree wholeheartedly. The director at one of my former employers was a former I/A at Sapient (he’s back there now as part of their UE team), and the morning meetings are incredibly useful.
I tried to bring the idea on board at my last employer, and it was always a constant struggle. I think it’s just the nature that most people don’t know how to run effective meetings, and are afraid that daily meetings are going to cost too much time, and I’m afraid some see it as too much intrusion/overseeing of their day to day work. When in reality, the added clarity saves time, and I feel, helps build morale by making employees feel as though everyone else is aware when they’ve got a heavier load, needs support, etc.
It’s wierd, I went from loving the short daily meetings a la Sapient to absolutely despising the inefficient, agenda-less, meandering meetings at my last job. For me, it meant going from constant clarity to constant miscommunication/confusion.
Though I do feel it’s important to point out, and some may argue with this, that it helps to have a high level outline(mile stones, project status, to-do’s, etc) of what is discussed in these morning meetings, otherwise they lose their purpose of being quick.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this one. Amen. Kyle
Oh, definitely a great idea. Something’s been nagging me, though: how do you prevent this meeting from taking too much time? Do you grant each person a fixed amount of time (say, 2 minutes) to do his/her “status update”? Peter Akkies
The key to the standup meeting (and I do think it’s a good idea), is keeping the # of attendees minimal.
2 minutes x 20 people = 40 minutes – well over the stated threshold of being a quick, productive and meanigful morning meeting. This certainly works well with small groups, but the larger the group gets, the less chance people attending will actually be able to participate directly, and the more chance you’re not using everyone’s time as efficiently and effectively as possible.
I hesitate to say it, but if you’ve got a ton of people on a project, it makes much more sense for there to be a truly quick and efficient stand-up meeting for project leads, who then have a truly quick and efficient stand-up meeting with their direct reports. James
Not to mention the prohibitive physical characteristics of a group of 20 or more people standing up and trying to talk to one another. Unless you have a space where everyone can stand in a circle facing one another… James
Peter – From my experience, the need to be quick and informative is instilled in each employee as a way to be more effective. When I’m working in this environment, the level of respect for everyone elses time is instantly elevated to a higher level.
Also, as I mentioned in my post, I feel a consistent highlevel outline/framework helps keep things short and to the point. In addition, if someone starts to ramble on for longer than they should, you just politely ask to take care of it offline with those necessary.
The focus is on short, concise, updates and alerts to upcoming needs. Individual cases where more clarity is needed can be approached by their respective team members at a later time. Kyle
I disagree about excluding people. The point is to increase important communication and decrease unimportant communication. It can get difficult around 20 people, but it’s important for everyone to understand the high level progress of the the project, and generally, leads don’t necessarily do a good job distributing that information. Naturally, you’ll need to adjust for your team, but the basic idea is still there.
As for efficiency, we have a specified order, based on our low-level plans that we each have on the wall. Everybody goes through with a purpose and it’s over quickly.
2 minutes is way long. We usually take about 30 seconds each at most. If a conversation takes more than a minute, it gets cut off and finished after the meeting by those that need to be involved. Garrett
Kyle – You nailed it. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Garrett
I think we’re looking at this from a slightly different angle – single project-centric vs. organization-wide. I certainly agree that everyone involved on any given project should be involved with a project-specific stand-up meeting – where all things regarding that project are quickly covered, and all hands – from entry-level to senior are on deck. Everyone leaves with the inner-project awareness that they need to more effectively approach their day.
Where I believe this idea loses its focus and effectiveness is when it’s implemented as an organization-wide meeting, where there are several projects and several project teams, and no real need for inter-project communication – you end up wasting people’s time, and not doing anything to effectively arm them for their day. James
James – Absolutely. We’ve always had different meetings for every project. A company-wide meeting every day would be disastorous.
We had them once a week here at Bright Corner, but that got old really fast, and few people were getting value out of them anymore at our current size. Garrett
I agree completely. Where I work we have short work-in-progess meetings every morning to make sure everyone is clear on what is happening that day.
It helps the project managers work out the most efficient way to use that day’s time, and it means everyone else knows what’s important and what can wait.
Also, knowing what others are working on allows you to help them (or have them help you) with a task they may be familiar with. Max
I was skeptical when we introduced our “Group Hugs” but they’ve been a real boon. Sure sometimes all you say is “Today I’ll be working on what I said I’d be working on yesterday” but the very fact you can say JUST THAT is great.
No repetition, and you know what everyone in the project is working on. Gordon
This is essentially a way to take attendance right? Basically reducing your workforce of professionals into a grade school class. Work has never ended at 5 pm sharp. Lunch hour is almost never an hour, how does forcing people into a meeting first thing in the morning accomplish anything aside animosity and poor moral?
anthonyThis is essentially a way to take attendance right? Basically reducing your workforce of professionals into a grade school class. Work has never ended at 5 pm sharp. Lunch hour is almost never an hour, how does forcing people into a meeting first thing in the morning accomplish anything aside animosity and poor moral?
mikeyComments are closed for this entry.