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At most places I’ve worked, long standups turn into “watch somebody else use Jira” meetings that all participants ignore until they hear their names. Not a grea

At most places I’ve worked, long standups turn into “watch somebody else use Jira” meetings that all participants ignore until they hear their names. Not a great use of anybody’s time.

hammock 4y ago
What is supposed to happen in Good standup?
- noisy_boy 4y ago
  "Any issues/blockers?" ... "No? ok - chat tomorrow".
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    “Good standup” also surfaces what people are working on because it might be important for the rest of the team to know for innumerable good reasons. It can serve as an opportunity for many-birds-one-stone, or even as an opportunity to interrupt work that doesn’t need to be done because it’s redundant to other efforts or because other efforts made it moot. But yeah, you won’t get that from standups where people aren’t invested in what others say they’re working on. That’s just people blabbing for a (hopefully short) ritual time.
  - rhaway84773 4y ago
    But why am I waiting for a standup to raise issues/blockers. Nearly every company has a team chat now. And even before team chats became popular email lists existed. And if you’re co-located then you just ask your neighbors. I never have any issues to raise in standup because I’ve already raised/resolved them.
    - VinzO 4y ago
      Exactly this. Why should we wait next day standup to discuss blockers? This is non sense.
    - piva00 4y ago
      In the few cases those need some synchronisation, further discussion and knowledge-sharing across everyone in the team, it's a time set for that to happen. Anything else can be discussed asynchronous, when the need for some synchronisation happens the stand-up is a good way to tackle it in a iterative way. Everyone knows what to expect. By the way I'm not disagreeing with you, my current team (and the best teams I've worked with) don't need a daily stand-up, just a recurring time slot available for a synch time when people feel the need. People can show up when they want.
    - noisy_boy 4y ago
      Because everyone may not be available all the time except standup when all hands are on the deck. Or maybe the discussion is better done face to face. Or maybe the issue happened just before standup and the timings aligned with standup. Or any of the myriad reasons. The example also doesn't preclude raising issues outside of standup.
- piva00 4y ago
  "Anything to bring up on those blockers, any help needed? No, ok, next: anything you want to bring up in the work in progress? Ok. Any further topics? By the way, if these topics are not relevant to you, you're free to go". That's basically it.
- nrclark 4y ago
  The best daily standups I ever had went like this: Everybody is physically standing up, in a place where there are no computers. Going around the circle, everybody answers three questions: 1. What did you do yesterday? 2. What will do you today? 3. Any blockers? Any long discussions were tabled until the standup was finished. It took about 5 minutes to get through a team of 6, and was a great way to kick off the workday. On Zoom, you can't get quite the same kind of effect. But you could still keep it short, and you could leave your ticket-board out of the meeting. I find that the no-Jira standup is better, because it makes people more honest about what they've actually been doing. They don't feel the pressure to fit some kind of Jira narrative, and will instead just talk freely about whatever's on their mind. Much better from a team collaboration perspective.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
When I’ve experienced this, I’ve availed myself of my personal favorite cargo cult rule: if you’re not getting value out of a meeting, you can leave. Cargo culted from Urban Airship, and almost all of their meeting rules have been well received several places I’ve introduced them. Although admittedly in my experience this particular rule is best invoked with some extra social subtlety.
edgyquant 4y ago
1. Thats no longer a standup but a planning meet 2. Those participants are not good employees then and should be told to pay attention or face further action. Meetings are for everyone to get on the same page, I’ve had too many engineers who think they have better things to do then implement things wrong or ask questions we covered in the meeting. Not something I’ll deal with anymore.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  If one of ten employees isn't paying attention in a meeting, good chance it's the employee's fault. If most of the employees in a meeting aren't paying attention, it's probably the manager's/meeting-runner's fault. In between those, it might take some digging to figure out who needs to adjust to fix the problem.

At most places I’ve worked, long standups turn into “watch somebody else use Jira” meetings that all participants ignore until they hear their names. Not a great use of anybody’s time.

hammock 4y ago

What is supposed to happen in Good standup?

noisy_boy 4y ago
"Any issues/blockers?" ... "No? ok - chat tomorrow".
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  “Good standup” also surfaces what people are working on because it might be important for the rest of the team to know for innumerable good reasons. It can serve as an opportunity for many-birds-one-stone, or even as an opportunity to interrupt work that doesn’t need to be done because it’s redundant to other efforts or because other efforts made it moot. But yeah, you won’t get that from standups where people aren’t invested in what others say they’re working on. That’s just people blabbing for a (hopefully short) ritual time.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  But why am I waiting for a standup to raise issues/blockers. Nearly every company has a team chat now. And even before team chats became popular email lists existed. And if you’re co-located then you just ask your neighbors. I never have any issues to raise in standup because I’ve already raised/resolved them.
  - VinzO 4y ago
    Exactly this. Why should we wait next day standup to discuss blockers? This is non sense.
  - piva00 4y ago
    In the few cases those need some synchronisation, further discussion and knowledge-sharing across everyone in the team, it's a time set for that to happen. Anything else can be discussed asynchronous, when the need for some synchronisation happens the stand-up is a good way to tackle it in a iterative way. Everyone knows what to expect. By the way I'm not disagreeing with you, my current team (and the best teams I've worked with) don't need a daily stand-up, just a recurring time slot available for a synch time when people feel the need. People can show up when they want.
  - noisy_boy 4y ago
    Because everyone may not be available all the time except standup when all hands are on the deck. Or maybe the discussion is better done face to face. Or maybe the issue happened just before standup and the timings aligned with standup. Or any of the myriad reasons. The example also doesn't preclude raising issues outside of standup.
piva00 4y ago
"Anything to bring up on those blockers, any help needed? No, ok, next: anything you want to bring up in the work in progress? Ok. Any further topics? By the way, if these topics are not relevant to you, you're free to go". That's basically it.
nrclark 4y ago
The best daily standups I ever had went like this: Everybody is physically standing up, in a place where there are no computers. Going around the circle, everybody answers three questions: 1. What did you do yesterday? 2. What will do you today? 3. Any blockers? Any long discussions were tabled until the standup was finished. It took about 5 minutes to get through a team of 6, and was a great way to kick off the workday. On Zoom, you can't get quite the same kind of effect. But you could still keep it short, and you could leave your ticket-board out of the meeting. I find that the no-Jira standup is better, because it makes people more honest about what they've actually been doing. They don't feel the pressure to fit some kind of Jira narrative, and will instead just talk freely about whatever's on their mind. Much better from a team collaboration perspective.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

When I’ve experienced this, I’ve availed myself of my personal favorite cargo cult rule: if you’re not getting value out of a meeting, you can leave. Cargo culted from Urban Airship, and almost all of their meeting rules have been well received several places I’ve introduced them. Although admittedly in my experience this particular rule is best invoked with some extra social subtlety.

edgyquant 4y ago

1. Thats no longer a standup but a planning meet 2. Those participants are not good employees then and should be told to pay attention or face further action. Meetings are for everyone to get on the same page, I’ve had too many engineers who think they have better things to do then implement things wrong or ask questions we covered in the meeting. Not something I’ll deal with anymore.

yamtaddle 4y ago
If one of ten employees isn't paying attention in a meeting, good chance it's the employee's fault. If most of the employees in a meeting aren't paying attention, it's probably the manager's/meeting-runner's fault. In between those, it might take some digging to figure out who needs to adjust to fix the problem.