5 ms·

To what extent? Up to days? Weeks? Months? Would you oppose daily standups?

by noway421 8y ago

icedchai 8y ago
"Daily standups" are morale killers.
- falcolas 8y ago
  Daily standups for remote workers are godsend. You'd think you could rely on people to communicate over chat or email, but the standup actually gets everyone talking and discussing.
  - icedchai 8y ago
    Perhaps. But do they really need to be daily? Maybe 2 or 3x a week.
    - falcolas 8y ago
      Having tried all three, every day built a lot more comradery than 2-3x per week. It also helps the remote workers feel more in touch with what's going on.
  - beat 8y ago
    My current team does weekly, and two of us are remote. Our half hour meeting invariably runs over an hour, up to two hours. If we did it daily, we could keep it to the cap without really taking more time.
    - falcolas 8y ago
      Indeed; I saw the same problem. Our team (4 out of 8 are remote) does daily meetings now, and it's actually pretty rare that we go over 10 minutes, let alone the scheduled 30.
- TotempaaltJ 8y ago
  Would you mind expanding on this? I'm interested how your experience with them differs from mine.
  - icedchai 8y ago
    Generally people are incapable of communicating efficiently. A standup should cover: 1) what did you do yesterday 2) what are you doing today 3) do you have an issues? This should take less than one minute per person. "Issues" should be resolved offline. I once worked on a team where the "scrum master" would update Jira for each person's status. This resulted in a 30 second update turning into 2 or 3 minutes of detailed status. I also worked on a 15 person team that had a giant stand up for the entire team. The resulted in a 30 to 45 minute stand up.
    - joshuamorton 8y ago
      Sure, those are bad. That doesn't mean standups are bad though. One thing I found successful was to push for the standup to start 15 minutes before lunch. That gives ample time for the standup (2-3 minutes per person is longer than one should need, but my team likes to take notes during the standup, which while lightweight does delay things a bit) and a bit of followup, and deciding where to eat. Also doing it just before lunch means everyone is in the office, you aren't breaking anyone out of flow unnecessarily, and everyone has a decent idea of what they will actually be working on today (since they are already in the context), so you don't have the issue of "hmm I don't remember what I was doing" or "uhhhh....oh right I'm planning to work on X" delaying things.

To what extent? Up to days? Weeks? Months? Would you oppose daily standups?

icedchai 8y ago

"Daily standups" are morale killers.

falcolas 8y ago
Daily standups for remote workers are godsend. You'd think you could rely on people to communicate over chat or email, but the standup actually gets everyone talking and discussing.
- icedchai 8y ago
  Perhaps. But do they really need to be daily? Maybe 2 or 3x a week.
  - falcolas 8y ago
    Having tried all three, every day built a lot more comradery than 2-3x per week. It also helps the remote workers feel more in touch with what's going on.
- beat 8y ago
  My current team does weekly, and two of us are remote. Our half hour meeting invariably runs over an hour, up to two hours. If we did it daily, we could keep it to the cap without really taking more time.
  - falcolas 8y ago
    Indeed; I saw the same problem. Our team (4 out of 8 are remote) does daily meetings now, and it's actually pretty rare that we go over 10 minutes, let alone the scheduled 30.
TotempaaltJ 8y ago
Would you mind expanding on this? I'm interested how your experience with them differs from mine.
- icedchai 8y ago
  Generally people are incapable of communicating efficiently. A standup should cover: 1) what did you do yesterday 2) what are you doing today 3) do you have an issues? This should take less than one minute per person. "Issues" should be resolved offline. I once worked on a team where the "scrum master" would update Jira for each person's status. This resulted in a 30 second update turning into 2 or 3 minutes of detailed status. I also worked on a 15 person team that had a giant stand up for the entire team. The resulted in a 30 to 45 minute stand up.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    Sure, those are bad. That doesn't mean standups are bad though. One thing I found successful was to push for the standup to start 15 minutes before lunch. That gives ample time for the standup (2-3 minutes per person is longer than one should need, but my team likes to take notes during the standup, which while lightweight does delay things a bit) and a bit of followup, and deciding where to eat. Also doing it just before lunch means everyone is in the office, you aren't breaking anyone out of flow unnecessarily, and everyone has a decent idea of what they will actually be working on today (since they are already in the context), so you don't have the issue of "hmm I don't remember what I was doing" or "uhhhh....oh right I'm planning to work on X" delaying things.