4 ms·

I'm still confused why this isn't just handled via email. Send an email at the end of the day and be done with it.

aninhumer 11y ago
I guess because sometimes people don't read email properly. If people actually meet up, you can be mostly sure that everyone has heard and processed everyone else's status updates, especially if the meeting is quick enough that people don't get too bored.
recursive 11y ago
Email is asynchronous. Impediments can't be addressed with the same immediacy.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Yeah, but do you want to have 10 people go through their 5 minute thing every day? Its basically a whole hour that could have been better used. Reading the same thing in email form and replying would maybe take 15min.
  - matthewmacleod 11y ago
    Yeah, but do you want to have 10 people go through their 5 minute thing every day? Its basically a whole hour that could have been better used. Every company is different, but in my opinion that's just a meeting rather than the canonical standup. I wouldn't expect a 10-person standup to take more than 15 minutes.
    - fweespeech 11y ago
      90 seconds per person? I've never seen any meeting go that fast.
      - spathi_fwiffo 11y ago
        Then your "standup" meetings are being run by an incompetent person; I've had that happen on several teams, as well, and it resulted in some miserable months; but, when it works well it works well. It is completely up to the person leading the meeting to set the tone and keep the pace - they should be interrupting people who take too long and moving it along. Properly run, people should just be reporting on status and impediments, not details. Remember, most people don't have anything to report: "I'm working on my stuff, no issues, that is all."... that's like 10 seconds tops. or, "I'm done, moving on to my next task". What's the next task? That's already been assigned at the start of the sprint, don't need to go over it here. If someone wants to know, they can look at the task tracker - if someone needs to change priority "need X done so I can work on Y", they can make a quick comment, or email after the meeting. even if it is "I'm done with my last thing, i need something new" -- you don't need to get that new thing in the meeting, the boss man knows you need something, they'll assign you something after the meeting. ... that leaves room for people with issues. And they still shouldn't take long. "I'm stuck! I need help with Z!" that gives time for a few people to say "I can help with that" and someone to be picked. Anything more should be a meeting of its own with just the effected people (not the entire team). Detailed status should be in nice clear comments in your task tracker.
      - eropple 11y ago
        When done well--and I'm pretty down on Agile in general, though I find standups valuable--ninety seconds should be at the high end, on average. I mean, sometimes people have a problem that needs some crosstalk, and they might go a little longer, but that should be rare and the person running the meeting should aggressively push that stuff to after the meeting whenever possible. IMO, at least, if your team takes more than 15 minutes going through 60-90 second blurbs of their day, your team either needs to get better at succinctly summarizing their stuff (and aggressively pushing side conversations to follow-ups after the meeting) or your team's too big.
- spathi_fwiffo 11y ago
  Excellent point. Also when problems are raised; you will get tons of responses to email; taking the time of many people. As opposed to being assigned one expert to help, taking the time of only one additional person (ideally).
gutnor 11y ago
It depends the project you work on. Typical scrum project is one that contains lots of smaller tasks - the standup is an opportunity for quick interactions, ad-hoc replanning (like don't do Y this morning, I'm not done with X. Should do Z today, not sure where to start, anyone can give me a hand ? Anybody remember what M is ?) Of course, you can and should do that anytime you are in need, but the standup meeting is a small time allocated where you have the attention of to the whole team. It can be done in an email - but generally people are not as succinct or too succinct and dialog does not really happen. If dialog does happen in your team, and you spend less time writing email than joining the meeting then why would you not do it via email ?

I guess because sometimes people don't read email properly. If people actually meet up, you can be mostly sure that everyone has heard and processed everyone else's status updates, especially if the meeting is quick enough that people don't get too bored.

recursive 11y ago

Email is asynchronous. Impediments can't be addressed with the same immediacy.

fweespeech 11y ago
Yeah, but do you want to have 10 people go through their 5 minute thing every day? Its basically a whole hour that could have been better used. Reading the same thing in email form and replying would maybe take 15min.
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  Yeah, but do you want to have 10 people go through their 5 minute thing every day? Its basically a whole hour that could have been better used. Every company is different, but in my opinion that's just a meeting rather than the canonical standup. I wouldn't expect a 10-person standup to take more than 15 minutes.
  - fweespeech 11y ago
    90 seconds per person? I've never seen any meeting go that fast.
    - spathi_fwiffo 11y ago
      Then your "standup" meetings are being run by an incompetent person; I've had that happen on several teams, as well, and it resulted in some miserable months; but, when it works well it works well. It is completely up to the person leading the meeting to set the tone and keep the pace - they should be interrupting people who take too long and moving it along. Properly run, people should just be reporting on status and impediments, not details. Remember, most people don't have anything to report: "I'm working on my stuff, no issues, that is all."... that's like 10 seconds tops. or, "I'm done, moving on to my next task". What's the next task? That's already been assigned at the start of the sprint, don't need to go over it here. If someone wants to know, they can look at the task tracker - if someone needs to change priority "need X done so I can work on Y", they can make a quick comment, or email after the meeting. even if it is "I'm done with my last thing, i need something new" -- you don't need to get that new thing in the meeting, the boss man knows you need something, they'll assign you something after the meeting. ... that leaves room for people with issues. And they still shouldn't take long. "I'm stuck! I need help with Z!" that gives time for a few people to say "I can help with that" and someone to be picked. Anything more should be a meeting of its own with just the effected people (not the entire team). Detailed status should be in nice clear comments in your task tracker.
    - eropple 11y ago
      When done well--and I'm pretty down on Agile in general, though I find standups valuable--ninety seconds should be at the high end, on average. I mean, sometimes people have a problem that needs some crosstalk, and they might go a little longer, but that should be rare and the person running the meeting should aggressively push that stuff to after the meeting whenever possible. IMO, at least, if your team takes more than 15 minutes going through 60-90 second blurbs of their day, your team either needs to get better at succinctly summarizing their stuff (and aggressively pushing side conversations to follow-ups after the meeting) or your team's too big.
spathi_fwiffo 11y ago
Excellent point. Also when problems are raised; you will get tons of responses to email; taking the time of many people. As opposed to being assigned one expert to help, taking the time of only one additional person (ideally).

gutnor 11y ago

It depends the project you work on. Typical scrum project is one that contains lots of smaller tasks - the standup is an opportunity for quick interactions, ad-hoc replanning (like don't do Y this morning, I'm not done with X. Should do Z today, not sure where to start, anyone can give me a hand ? Anybody remember what M is ?) Of course, you can and should do that anytime you are in need, but the standup meeting is a small time allocated where you have the attention of to the whole team. It can be done in an email - but generally people are not as succinct or too succinct and dialog does not really happen. If dialog does happen in your team, and you spend less time writing email than joining the meeting then why would you not do it via email ?