Daily Standup: Yesterday I went to a meeting?

As an agile coach, I get the opportunity to observe many daily standup meetings. Often I see a team lead kick-off with a brain dump of everything they did yesterday including a summary of all the meetings, which they attended on behalf of the team. Lately I've been wondering if being the first person to talk sets the right tone. What signal does this give the team?

The purpose of daily standup is not to account for time spent yesterday but to make a plan for today. Some things that happened yesterday may be important to consider but many are not relevant to this purpose. Remember that the meeting should have a forward focus. This may not be the best time to share updates from meetings because team members might want the chance to discuss those issues and ask questions (but hold back as they feel the standup isn't the right time to ask questions).

Consider starting the standup by hearing from the team members who've been in the thick of the work rather than on the periphery. Model the behaviour you'd like to see from all team members - show your respect by paying attention to each person and listening to them. Open your ears for new information, this is an opportunity to pick up whether they're running into problems perhaps they need support or are drifting onto work that's not in scope for the current iteration. An essential part of making a plan for the day is to understand the state of play - this is your opportunity to hear from all the players.

If your own report is regularly about meetings and discussions that the team wasn't party to, it's possible that you may be isolating the team from conversations that they ought to hear and contribute to first-hand. Sacrificing your time as the "meetings buff" may spring from good intentions -- to save them from unnecessary meetings -- but the cost is they depend on information filtered through you and lose an opportunity to build their own relationships with stakeholders. While you're playing team spokesman, you end up away from the team and risk becoming detached from the daily work.

So next time you're tempted to start the daily standup with your meeting updates, think about whether you really need to share these first and whether more people on the team should be involved in spreading the burden of meetings. Thoughts?

Comments

[Toddcharron]

Hi Rachel,

I often use Improv warm-ups with the teams I coach. One great one is clap focus. In this exercise, one person claps and points at another person in the circle and says their name (passing the focus to that person), they then pass it on to someone else and so forth. We then carry that over to the stand-up itself. Whenever someone feels ready, they start, speak, and then pass it to the next person they'd like to hear from.

This helps change-up the order of who goes when every day, breaks the monotony of the meeting, and allows the individuals to pass to the people they want to hear go next. It also encourages listening, since you never know when it's going to be passed to you. It doesn't necessarily eliminate the talk of meetings in the stand-up, but it often ends up with those updates coming at the end.

I find the Daily stand-up to one of the easiest practices for teams to start doing, but most teams fail to get the full value out of it.

I actually put out a video course a little while back focused entirely on improving your daily stand-up meeting. I can post a link here, if you're interested.

Thanks.

Todd

[Martin Ellemann Olesen]

Hi Rachel,

I think the stand-up is primarily for the team to synchronize and not a verbal status report to the team lead. Working as Scrum Master I try to stand back and let the team own the meeting. I also let the team members start, but often finish by answering the classical questions myself. On the beginning I skipped answering them, but found the team actually wanted to hear from me too.

/Martin

[Tony]

I agree that the morning standup should be about forward planning but more importantly it's about unblocking blockers. If the team is interacting with the board all day, that lowers the tone for an implicit daily report.
However, interesting meeting points should be raised to the team if it's applicable to the team, there's no better time then at standup. But if points are directed to a few members of the team, that should be taken offline, away from the standup.

I've lost the thread of the point I was trying to make, but there is no right way to do a standup, it's what works for the team.

Tony