4 ms·

This is exactly the mindset of failure. The team standup has 10x more priority than some dumb basketball league

jackblemming 4y ago
Show me the studies on the effectiveness of a daily 10 min standup and I’d be happy to listen. Otherwise I’d be happy to make up some other rituals that sound good on paper and then rationalize them with buzzwords.
- bobobob420 4y ago
  - 8note 4y ago
    The only particularly useful standup I've been in is when our VP was joining to see if we needed any quick escalations each day for about a week Everything else is fun for memorizing what everyone's doing so I can respond immediately to random questions, but the value is questionable. Everyone else on my team would be better off if I didn't know everything off hand, and instead relied on the proper sources of truth
- lovich 4y ago
  Speaking as a manager who at least _thinks_ I run stand ups well, I have them run for 5-10 minutes max for 5 people and treat them as an update so that I can run interference on any “status updates” other parts of the company demand across a day, and as the time for the team to tell me what problems I need to go fix for the team to be productive. I usually leave a standup with a list of 1-3 people I need to go talk to, to either move the code through bureaucratic processes, or an actual decision to make on which projects we’ll take on based on information found while engineering. That said I also don’t care if my people say they have nothing of note and skip the meeting
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
Agree to disagree. A team standup has close to no value. Having a high quality of life has a lot of value (including increased work productivity). As the California Milk Campaign went - happy cows make quality cheese, and happy workers make quality work... Again - one can be moved, the other cannot.
- metabagel 4y ago
  It has value to a single person - the person running the meeting. Everyone else zones out until it's their time to speak.
  - presentation 4y ago
    That’s why I just do 3-5 min syncs 3-4 times a week one on one with my direct reports with flex to lengthen if a deeper topic comes up. Uses more of my time but less zoning out and more chance to actually unblock blockers. Downside is I need to tell people to communicate if there is value in team collaboration, but we have other opportunities for fostering that.
- hbrn 4y ago
  Getting a bunch of introverts to talk to each other every day can have tremendous value for the company. But in most companies standups are just agile cargo cult. Nobody knows why they are doing standups, so naturally they turn into "I publicly report to my manager and pretend I work really hard, because everybody else is doing that". People forgot (or never realized?) that standups are not for the manager, they are for the team.
- lmeyerov 4y ago
  If team happiness comes from basketball, that's (probably) not the team driving revenue. I've mostly only seen that tied to results in professional basketball teams. (Not to hate on balls: it was great playing volleyball in grad school. After 5pm. A couple of $B companies came out of that group.)
paganel 4y ago
As it happens the last The Office episode I saw a couple of months ago involved Michael Scott organizing a basketball match during work hours, even though corporate had just been complaining about low numbers from him and his team (if I remember right). Related to a comment further up the thread about fruits, a close friend of mine told me some time ago how one of his colleagues was complaining in the company chat about the kiwi fruits that were being given by the company as free perks having too much of that “hairy” stuff on them (I’m on my phone, too lazy to search for the exact English term), and how he preferred to be served “lean” and “shiny” kiwi fruits instead. Said friend works at the local subsidiary of a big US tech company of which everyone on this forum has heard about.
isatty 4y ago
A team building activity has 10x the priority than some standup. If you need a standup to get stuff done or to motivate people then you’ve already lost.
winphone1974 4y ago
Not for the participants apparently.
jimbob45 4y ago
I guess you and I are in the minority now because I absolutely agree. To me, the hypothetical was akin to skipping school to go hang out with your friends.
8note 4y ago
High intensity physical activity keeps you in shape both physically and mentally. Standup everyday with people burnt out and depressed due to a lack of excercise and poor nutrition is a recipe for failure too.
- D-Coder 4y ago
  "High intensity physical activity..." is exactly one of the things I DON'T want. Any programming position that wants me out of my chair for exercise... nope. I'll deal with exercise and nutrition on my own time, thank you very much.
  - horns4lyfe 4y ago
    No one’s talking about forcing a basketball game, but people here are acting like taking the time out of the blessed 8 hrs to play one of you want is sacrilegious.

Show me the studies on the effectiveness of a daily 10 min standup and I’d be happy to listen. Otherwise I’d be happy to make up some other rituals that sound good on paper and then rationalize them with buzzwords.

bobobob420 4y ago
- 8note 4y ago
  The only particularly useful standup I've been in is when our VP was joining to see if we needed any quick escalations each day for about a week Everything else is fun for memorizing what everyone's doing so I can respond immediately to random questions, but the value is questionable. Everyone else on my team would be better off if I didn't know everything off hand, and instead relied on the proper sources of truth
lovich 4y ago
Speaking as a manager who at least _thinks_ I run stand ups well, I have them run for 5-10 minutes max for 5 people and treat them as an update so that I can run interference on any “status updates” other parts of the company demand across a day, and as the time for the team to tell me what problems I need to go fix for the team to be productive. I usually leave a standup with a list of 1-3 people I need to go talk to, to either move the code through bureaucratic processes, or an actual decision to make on which projects we’ll take on based on information found while engineering. That said I also don’t care if my people say they have nothing of note and skip the meeting

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

Agree to disagree. A team standup has close to no value. Having a high quality of life has a lot of value (including increased work productivity). As the California Milk Campaign went - happy cows make quality cheese, and happy workers make quality work... Again - one can be moved, the other cannot.

metabagel 4y ago
It has value to a single person - the person running the meeting. Everyone else zones out until it's their time to speak.
- presentation 4y ago
  That’s why I just do 3-5 min syncs 3-4 times a week one on one with my direct reports with flex to lengthen if a deeper topic comes up. Uses more of my time but less zoning out and more chance to actually unblock blockers. Downside is I need to tell people to communicate if there is value in team collaboration, but we have other opportunities for fostering that.
hbrn 4y ago
Getting a bunch of introverts to talk to each other every day can have tremendous value for the company. But in most companies standups are just agile cargo cult. Nobody knows why they are doing standups, so naturally they turn into "I publicly report to my manager and pretend I work really hard, because everybody else is doing that". People forgot (or never realized?) that standups are not for the manager, they are for the team.
lmeyerov 4y ago
If team happiness comes from basketball, that's (probably) not the team driving revenue. I've mostly only seen that tied to results in professional basketball teams. (Not to hate on balls: it was great playing volleyball in grad school. After 5pm. A couple of $B companies came out of that group.)

paganel 4y ago

As it happens the last The Office episode I saw a couple of months ago involved Michael Scott organizing a basketball match during work hours, even though corporate had just been complaining about low numbers from him and his team (if I remember right). Related to a comment further up the thread about fruits, a close friend of mine told me some time ago how one of his colleagues was complaining in the company chat about the kiwi fruits that were being given by the company as free perks having too much of that “hairy” stuff on them (I’m on my phone, too lazy to search for the exact English term), and how he preferred to be served “lean” and “shiny” kiwi fruits instead. Said friend works at the local subsidiary of a big US tech company of which everyone on this forum has heard about.

isatty 4y ago

A team building activity has 10x the priority than some standup. If you need a standup to get stuff done or to motivate people then you’ve already lost.

winphone1974 4y ago

Not for the participants apparently.

jimbob45 4y ago

I guess you and I are in the minority now because I absolutely agree. To me, the hypothetical was akin to skipping school to go hang out with your friends.

8note 4y ago

High intensity physical activity keeps you in shape both physically and mentally. Standup everyday with people burnt out and depressed due to a lack of excercise and poor nutrition is a recipe for failure too.

D-Coder 4y ago
"High intensity physical activity..." is exactly one of the things I DON'T want. Any programming position that wants me out of my chair for exercise... nope. I'll deal with exercise and nutrition on my own time, thank you very much.
- horns4lyfe 4y ago
  No one’s talking about forcing a basketball game, but people here are acting like taking the time out of the blessed 8 hrs to play one of you want is sacrilegious.