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I don't much like standups, but I've noticed that they tend to end up being a hard start to the day. When we had them at 9:30, people would tend to always get

I don't much like standups, but I've noticed that they tend to end up being a hard start to the day. When we had them at 9:30, people would tend to always get in to the office by at least 9:15. When we kick them back to 10:30, people tend to straggle in up to 10, 10:15. Generally, people adjust to whatever the time is, so they have some minutes to get settled and triage their email; you usually can't actually get anything done unless you come in a couple hours before in the morning, and trying to start anything and pause for the meeting is a mess, because of the risk of getting diverted onto something else as a result of the standup.

ApolloFortyNine 7y ago
As one of those people, it's because, as a developer, I hate knowing I'm going to be interrupted in X amount of time. Obviously if it was something like 11, 1130, it'd be different. But if with no standup I'd get to the office at 915, but the standup is at 10, I don't think I'd get any valuable piece of work done in that 45 minutes.
- jay_kyburz 7y ago
  I always used that time to clear my inbox and read the internet. Get those early distractions out of the way.
ClumsyPilot 7y ago
While there is truth to what you are saying, there is no particular requirement for stating a day with a standup. I find it's a glorified catch-up session and can be held equally successfully at 2pm. People can generally use their morning productively without it. I also find written form of standup more valuable than the verbal one.
- thrower123 7y ago
  I agree completely. I'm certainly far more productive in the morning if there is not a standup or some recurring daily meeting scheduled... That defined interruption imposes a big cost in productivity beforehand. It squeezes everything. Why standups couldn't just be a handful of bullet points from each person when they spin up for the day in a Slack channel is something I have never quite understood.
  - clarry 7y ago
    No standups where I work. If I need to know what my coworkers are up to, I just ask them. If they need to know what I'm up to, they ask me. Works great. We rarely need to ask. If there is an issue that affects multiple people, we can talk about it on the issue tracker, where we see commits too.
    - thekingofh 7y ago
      I've watched how the morning standups are abused. The people with the authority to call them have wasted countless COUNTLESS hours of productivity going in circles about non-issues, just to flex their authority. If I'm upper management and I see daily meetings being called, I'm going to be quick to shut that down. Weekly is fine, but daily seems to me a misrepresentation of the amount of work that can be accomplished in one afternoon.

ApolloFortyNine 7y ago

As one of those people, it's because, as a developer, I hate knowing I'm going to be interrupted in X amount of time. Obviously if it was something like 11, 1130, it'd be different. But if with no standup I'd get to the office at 915, but the standup is at 10, I don't think I'd get any valuable piece of work done in that 45 minutes.

jay_kyburz 7y ago
I always used that time to clear my inbox and read the internet. Get those early distractions out of the way.

ClumsyPilot 7y ago

While there is truth to what you are saying, there is no particular requirement for stating a day with a standup. I find it's a glorified catch-up session and can be held equally successfully at 2pm. People can generally use their morning productively without it. I also find written form of standup more valuable than the verbal one.

thrower123 7y ago
I agree completely. I'm certainly far more productive in the morning if there is not a standup or some recurring daily meeting scheduled... That defined interruption imposes a big cost in productivity beforehand. It squeezes everything. Why standups couldn't just be a handful of bullet points from each person when they spin up for the day in a Slack channel is something I have never quite understood.
- clarry 7y ago
  No standups where I work. If I need to know what my coworkers are up to, I just ask them. If they need to know what I'm up to, they ask me. Works great. We rarely need to ask. If there is an issue that affects multiple people, we can talk about it on the issue tracker, where we see commits too.
  - thekingofh 7y ago
    I've watched how the morning standups are abused. The people with the authority to call them have wasted countless COUNTLESS hours of productivity going in circles about non-issues, just to flex their authority. If I'm upper management and I see daily meetings being called, I'm going to be quick to shut that down. Weekly is fine, but daily seems to me a misrepresentation of the amount of work that can be accomplished in one afternoon.