6 ms·

> not helpful is when standups are treated like status reports > simply state what you’re doing Honest question, what's the difference.

projectileboy 6y ago
In theory, no difference. In practice, good standups to me always feel like a casual conversation, and bad standups always feel like people speaking off a script like bad actors.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  > In theory, no difference. In practice, good standups to me always feel like a casual conversation, and bad standups always feel like people speaking off a script like bad actors. As someone who did sales early in my career... acting off of a script correctly feels like a casual conversation to the one you're selling to. If your script-reading is bad, that's because you haven't practiced enough. Having a script isn't necessarily a bad thing, and is in fact very useful in keeping focus.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    Programmers are not salesmen, and this is not in their control, the scrum master often demands a question/answer type of conversation.
    - dragontamer 6y ago
      The more I grow into senior engineer / more leadership positions, the more and more my sales training from my youth comes in handy. Every meeting you have with people has a goal (otherwise, you wouldn't meet with them to begin with!!). Maybe the goal is to gather requirements, or maybe the goal is to convince them to do something for you. The latter is 100% sales. None of us exist within a vacuum, we rely upon APIs or libraries or frameworks to do things. And if these APIs / libraries / frameworks are company / organization specific, you'll need to convince their lead engineer that your change is worthwhile to adapt.
- hordeallergy 6y ago
  Why not just have casual conversations instead? Standups are one those things that people disagree on endlessly without discussing context - their worth depends on the team. On my current team they're worthless. I'd rather have casual conversation, but that's like squeezing blood from a stone. Departure planning underway.
  - kenhwang 6y ago
    Some people just don't like casual conversation and wouldn't initiate conversation on their own. If you have enough of those types, no communication wold happen. Ad-hoc conversation tends to be interruptive which is not desirable for people on maker schedules. Either way, standups is just one communication strategy. Pick the communication strategy that works with the style your team feels comfortable with. There's rarely one solution fits all when it comes to communication.
  - projectileboy 6y ago
    It’s a good question that every team should ask themselves rather than just blindly follow some scrum book. One reason that standups can be worthwhile is if your product managers are hard to get a hold of (which is common), it’s a guaranteed time when you can ask them some questions. But your mileage may vary.
  - ozim 6y ago
    It should be, but not everyone on the team has to be confident. Not everyone has to be outspoken, not everyone has to have perfect pronunciation. Not everyone is able to structure their thoughts in 1 minute, even though they are able to work on complex systems. What you want from "what you did yesterday, blockers, what you will do today" script is a framework for conversation starter, conversation scope and having something that you can prepare before. Some people can come up with it on the spot and some people think they should come up with it on the spot. That is why I hate having standup right at the start of the day like 9.00, I usually have to get at least 20 mins to get check up what I finished yesterday and start picking up something new, going through priorities.
    - 6y ago
- zygy 6y ago
  If one had to troubleshoot a bad standup meeting, how might you turn one that feels more scripted into one that feels more natural?
  - corty 6y ago
    Everyone is standing up, sitting down only as a medical exception. Strict time limits. Everyone gets 30s, extension only of there is a question from the crowd. For the topics "yesterday, blockers, today" just make it 3 "words" for yesterday and today each. Like "yesterday customer contact and small bugs, today think about customer suggestions, maybe with Christine" at most. Only the blockers deserve a full sentence maybe.
dirkt 6y ago
status report = you have to take responsibility for what you have done (or not done) state what you are doing = what happens automatically if you sit in the same office with other programmers: you know what they are working on, you know if they are stuck with something because they usually just ask aloud, etc.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  Not questioning your experience, but I've sat in a lot of engineering offices and had very little clue what the people around me were working on. Standups really improved that aspect for me.
lordgrenville 6y ago
I would suggest the difference is if you feel pressure about your response. Is it ok to pass, or say something like "still working on same issue I discussed a couple of days ago"? If not, it's less like a casual conversation, and more like justifying your time.
- paledot 6y ago
  I would say that's perfectly okay, but not for the reason you think. If your status is "still working on the same issue", your team should respond with "how can we help?". If your status doesn't change, that's a sign that something's wrong at some level, whether it's because you're stalled or because the issue was poorly scoped or poorly defined.
  - navaati 6y ago
    What about the fact that some stuff just takes time, is that not conceivable to you ?
    - fragmede 6y ago
      Stand up is not (supposed to be) oppositional/conflict driven (but there are many toxic workplace cultures). Obviously some things "just take time", but what is the stuff that's taking up time? Assume it's all developers in the room and we're all familiar with the code base. Are you doing a stupid boring refactor of a thing tat "just takes time" but someone on the team wrote - and they have thoughts on pitfalls to avoid if they were rewriting it? Are you banging your head against an elusive bug that "will just take time" to tease out? The point of the standup is to shine light on any number of stupid pitfalls that every developer, even (especially) seasoned developers get stuck on, have dealt with in the past, and can give guidance with. If you're just cargo-culting having a daily 15-minute meeting under the guise of agile or whatever, and it's just a status meeting, then cancel it, until after people learn to have a proper stand-up. Waking up just to go to a meeting and report "I'm still working on the thing", is a waste of everyone's time, and is a meeting that would have been better off as an email. (Provided people can send that email, which is not always possible, and is an entirely different topic.)
pvinis 6y ago
we use these three questions: - what you did? - what will you do? - do you have any blockers? usually the blockers part is useful to know if anyone is having any issues with anything that others could help.
- spockz 6y ago
  What you did is typically not useful to share. This can be seen on the scrum board. What you do want to share is your experience, what was hard/easy/remarkable or when you are stuck. Just reporting what you did goes quickly to defending your hours or something.
iovrthoughtthis 6y ago
In a standup you should be able to say “i’m not really doing anything atm”, “i’m writing tests for x”, “i’m documenting y” without fear of someone asking you justify yourself.

projectileboy 6y ago

In theory, no difference. In practice, good standups to me always feel like a casual conversation, and bad standups always feel like people speaking off a script like bad actors.

dragontamer 6y ago
> In theory, no difference. In practice, good standups to me always feel like a casual conversation, and bad standups always feel like people speaking off a script like bad actors. As someone who did sales early in my career... acting off of a script correctly feels like a casual conversation to the one you're selling to. If your script-reading is bad, that's because you haven't practiced enough. Having a script isn't necessarily a bad thing, and is in fact very useful in keeping focus.
- emteycz 6y ago
  Programmers are not salesmen, and this is not in their control, the scrum master often demands a question/answer type of conversation.
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    The more I grow into senior engineer / more leadership positions, the more and more my sales training from my youth comes in handy. Every meeting you have with people has a goal (otherwise, you wouldn't meet with them to begin with!!). Maybe the goal is to gather requirements, or maybe the goal is to convince them to do something for you. The latter is 100% sales. None of us exist within a vacuum, we rely upon APIs or libraries or frameworks to do things. And if these APIs / libraries / frameworks are company / organization specific, you'll need to convince their lead engineer that your change is worthwhile to adapt.
hordeallergy 6y ago
Why not just have casual conversations instead? Standups are one those things that people disagree on endlessly without discussing context - their worth depends on the team. On my current team they're worthless. I'd rather have casual conversation, but that's like squeezing blood from a stone. Departure planning underway.
- kenhwang 6y ago
  Some people just don't like casual conversation and wouldn't initiate conversation on their own. If you have enough of those types, no communication wold happen. Ad-hoc conversation tends to be interruptive which is not desirable for people on maker schedules. Either way, standups is just one communication strategy. Pick the communication strategy that works with the style your team feels comfortable with. There's rarely one solution fits all when it comes to communication.
- projectileboy 6y ago
  It’s a good question that every team should ask themselves rather than just blindly follow some scrum book. One reason that standups can be worthwhile is if your product managers are hard to get a hold of (which is common), it’s a guaranteed time when you can ask them some questions. But your mileage may vary.
- ozim 6y ago
  It should be, but not everyone on the team has to be confident. Not everyone has to be outspoken, not everyone has to have perfect pronunciation. Not everyone is able to structure their thoughts in 1 minute, even though they are able to work on complex systems. What you want from "what you did yesterday, blockers, what you will do today" script is a framework for conversation starter, conversation scope and having something that you can prepare before. Some people can come up with it on the spot and some people think they should come up with it on the spot. That is why I hate having standup right at the start of the day like 9.00, I usually have to get at least 20 mins to get check up what I finished yesterday and start picking up something new, going through priorities.
  - 6y ago
zygy 6y ago
If one had to troubleshoot a bad standup meeting, how might you turn one that feels more scripted into one that feels more natural?
- corty 6y ago
  Everyone is standing up, sitting down only as a medical exception. Strict time limits. Everyone gets 30s, extension only of there is a question from the crowd. For the topics "yesterday, blockers, today" just make it 3 "words" for yesterday and today each. Like "yesterday customer contact and small bugs, today think about customer suggestions, maybe with Christine" at most. Only the blockers deserve a full sentence maybe.

dirkt 6y ago

status report = you have to take responsibility for what you have done (or not done) state what you are doing = what happens automatically if you sit in the same office with other programmers: you know what they are working on, you know if they are stuck with something because they usually just ask aloud, etc.

BurningFrog 6y ago
Not questioning your experience, but I've sat in a lot of engineering offices and had very little clue what the people around me were working on. Standups really improved that aspect for me.

lordgrenville 6y ago

I would suggest the difference is if you feel pressure about your response. Is it ok to pass, or say something like "still working on same issue I discussed a couple of days ago"? If not, it's less like a casual conversation, and more like justifying your time.

paledot 6y ago
I would say that's perfectly okay, but not for the reason you think. If your status is "still working on the same issue", your team should respond with "how can we help?". If your status doesn't change, that's a sign that something's wrong at some level, whether it's because you're stalled or because the issue was poorly scoped or poorly defined.
- navaati 6y ago
  What about the fact that some stuff just takes time, is that not conceivable to you ?
  - fragmede 6y ago
    Stand up is not (supposed to be) oppositional/conflict driven (but there are many toxic workplace cultures). Obviously some things "just take time", but what is the stuff that's taking up time? Assume it's all developers in the room and we're all familiar with the code base. Are you doing a stupid boring refactor of a thing tat "just takes time" but someone on the team wrote - and they have thoughts on pitfalls to avoid if they were rewriting it? Are you banging your head against an elusive bug that "will just take time" to tease out? The point of the standup is to shine light on any number of stupid pitfalls that every developer, even (especially) seasoned developers get stuck on, have dealt with in the past, and can give guidance with. If you're just cargo-culting having a daily 15-minute meeting under the guise of agile or whatever, and it's just a status meeting, then cancel it, until after people learn to have a proper stand-up. Waking up just to go to a meeting and report "I'm still working on the thing", is a waste of everyone's time, and is a meeting that would have been better off as an email. (Provided people can send that email, which is not always possible, and is an entirely different topic.)

pvinis 6y ago

we use these three questions: - what you did? - what will you do? - do you have any blockers? usually the blockers part is useful to know if anyone is having any issues with anything that others could help.

spockz 6y ago
What you did is typically not useful to share. This can be seen on the scrum board. What you do want to share is your experience, what was hard/easy/remarkable or when you are stuck. Just reporting what you did goes quickly to defending your hours or something.

iovrthoughtthis 6y ago

In a standup you should be able to say “i’m not really doing anything atm”, “i’m writing tests for x”, “i’m documenting y” without fear of someone asking you justify yourself.