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This is a question I want to know - is anyone actually paying attention to everything during standup? It seems some people are, because they occasionally have i

This is a question I want to know - is anyone actually paying attention to everything during standup? It seems some people are, because they occasionally have insightful comments. Even when I'm not distracting myself, I totally zone out in meetings and have no idea what was being said. The only times where I can actually pay attention is in meetings where I have the right to (and it is conducive to) constantly interrupt with questions. Then my brain suddenly sees the information as useful because I'm looking for opportunities to say something.

piva00 3y ago
Depends on the stand-up. For the past 10 years I'd say most of my standups have been painless, quick, and productive, but I've both selected good jobs and/or worked with the team for that to be the case. Mine usually don't last more than 10-15 minutes, no one has to read ticket by ticket and give detailed status updates, we simply look at 2 columns on the board (for what's in progress and what's in waiting/blocked) and ask: "anything someone want to bring up about these tasks?" to have a sanity check if everything is alright or if someone needs help, or if someone wants to share some quick information. After there's a general question "anything else you want to bring for the standup?" for the stuff we don't have a ticket for, or quick updates from PMs/EMs about things outside of our current scope/context. Any further discussion is taken after the standup, if some topic starts to grow into a discussion we are strict about bringing it for discussion with the interested ones right after the standup. Those discussions never last more than 20-30 min, if they need more time we schedule a meeting with proper agenda, etc. Whenever I worked at a place with dysfunctional ones I either managed to help correct course, or quit the job. To me teams with good standup hygiene will very likely have meetings/processes hygiene as well, and is a very good signal of a well functioning team.
- wiz21c 3y ago
  > or quit the job. sadly it took me years to understand that this is a perfectly valid solution. But damn, that's so hard to do (at least to me :-))
- helboi4 3y ago
  Would love to suggest this. Might be bold as a fairly new junior though haha. I do think these meetings would make far more sense if we only discussed things that people had issues with. If everyone's just rambling it's pointless. My standup are rarely an hour but they are often about 30 mins which is already just unnecessary most days. The thing I hate most is sprint planning and refinement. People make such big deals about everything and it can easily last over an hour. I especially hate all the drama about making sure our workload is right and moaning about how long things will take and politics and such. I'm starting to think it's some sort of cult of unproductivity ever since the senior frontend guy said that an angular upgrade would take us 2 years and loads of seniors so it's not worth starting this year. It's a massive load of version but ain't no way that's gonna take 2 years and that we can't do it with the one senior frontend, one mid frontend and one junior fullstack (me).
ben_w 3y ago
Depends how they're done. I try to push for people to actually stand up during a stand up, because that encourages the meeting to be short and to the point, not an hour of pointless waffle (and if it's an hour long meeting, waffle is probably an apt description).
- meindnoch 3y ago
  Standing up is not enough for some managers to cut it short. I recommend standing on one leg, or keeping your arms raised.
  - amarant 3y ago
    I once worked at a company that decided to do Samson's chair during standup. It was brutally effective, especially those who went last sounded like a new Eminem single. Standupps went from >30 to <1 minute immediately
    - icameron 3y ago
      I just had to look that up. It’s another name for a wall sit. Brutal!
- helboi4 3y ago
  YES. I remember watching day in the life of a se videos like 7 years ago when I was 18ish and vaguely considering the career (I didn't go for it and took a long route), and I remember distinctly that the whole point of stand up was that you STAND. it's in the name and its like that for a reason. Now, having started in the industry, I was so confused that people ignore the whole imperative of the name and make it into the exact sort of sprawling business meeting that it's not supposed to be.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
  I can't stand for more than a couple minutes before my back hurts. I propose that whoever is talking must stand. This punishes people who get into details of their task, and nobody else.
sublinear 3y ago
If you find that people need to discuss so much that it takes too long and people aren't paying attention, those discussions need to go into another meeting. Having a good product owner is important for coordinating meetings in general. Standups should be for tracking progress on tasks and nothing more. If someone is blocked they should briefly state why and follow up ASAP, but after the standup.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > Standups should be for tracking progress on tasks and nothing more. Then what's the point? I probably don't care about someone's status in the first place, and when I do a big fat notification informs me when the status has changed the second it changes. "Duh. I'm still working on it, obviously." doesn't tell me anything. > If someone is blocked they should briefly state why and follow up ASAP If someone is blocked by my doing, they would have already told me 23.5 hours[1] before the scheduled meeting came around, when they became blocked. I don't need to hear it a second time. If it has nothing to do with me, I don't care. What's the point? [1] Or even longer if not on a daily meeting schedule. Way too long if you sit around and wait for the meeting to finally come around before talking to anyone.
  - sublinear 3y ago
    I used to think like this before I worked on projects with more coordination and visibility than just other devs. The daily standups are for management and whoever else is invited from time to time. You're 100% correct that you shouldn't wait for tomorrow's standup to discuss something technical with another developer. You shouldn't be getting lost in the weeds during standups anyway. That's one of many reasons standups can take forever. Also, a well run standup can be as simple as one person sharing their screen while walking through the tasks and asking yes/no questions. You don't need everyone to speak all the time because as you said that wastes time. Anyone can read the issues statuses at any time or query what they need. These meetings are for more insightful questions than that from management: "You and a couple of other devs on this story said your tasks are blocked because this servicenow ticket for another team is still in progress? I've reached out and they said they're going to be done by noon. Will you complete your in progress tasks by then or should we reassign or push their dates back so you can continue this higher priority ticket?" ... "Great I'll update the backlog for the sprint starting next week and your time in the capacity tracker" ... "You scheduled PTO? We've got everything all set for the next sprint so no worries. Have a nice vacation!" It's not a dream. Agile done right is like this. If you hate the idea of a meeting like this it's possible your managers suck and don't listen to you. They're supposed to be working for you to keep the runway clear. When they hear all the status updates all at once in daily meetings they should be getting ready for the next sprint and coming up with good ideas behind the scenes. That includes bringing in resources, making sure dependent tasks on other projects are completed so you don't get blocked, etc.
someotherperson 3y ago
* Alternate different people at random to run the standup * Control people who talk for too long or go into detail that's not worthwhile * If you have a board, run through each ticket in progress/in review for a casual update, record it as a note * Have an icebreaker (1 minute) before or after, ie "fun fact of the day" or something and randomly choose people to do it * Ends with a section on anything else to add, if anyone is blocked, whatever, and have people break out into their own meetings if necessary * If it spills over 15 minutes then continue to trim down on the update complexity
- giantg2 3y ago
  You forgot the most important part - buy-in from management. It wouldn't surprise me if they're the reason the updates are lengthy.
  - someotherperson 3y ago
    That's true, but some people also just like to ramble
    - giantg2 3y ago
      The rambling is easier to correct than having a boss that wants an in-depth status on every ticket.
- bobek 3y ago
  Or go written. It is a great fit for some teams.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    So called "async standups" are fantastic. The only thing that changes between 5:00p and 9:00a the next day is I've typically forgot what I'm working on so being able to post my standup for tomorrow at the end of the day is so nice.
- TimTheTinker 3y ago
ecf 3y ago
In my personal experience I’ve found stand ups are incredibly easy to sidetrack. One dev starts going into too much detail about a troublesome aspect of their ticket instead of simply stating what the problem is and then organizing a time after the standup to meet with the colleague best suited to assist. Standups shouldn’t be a rubber duck session with the entire team.
p1necone 3y ago
Imo standups shouldn't have more than 5 or 6 people in them. If there's more than that you're probably not all working closely enough for the standup to provide much value - find some nice cutting point in the project, split into smaller teams.

piva00 3y ago

Depends on the stand-up. For the past 10 years I'd say most of my standups have been painless, quick, and productive, but I've both selected good jobs and/or worked with the team for that to be the case. Mine usually don't last more than 10-15 minutes, no one has to read ticket by ticket and give detailed status updates, we simply look at 2 columns on the board (for what's in progress and what's in waiting/blocked) and ask: "anything someone want to bring up about these tasks?" to have a sanity check if everything is alright or if someone needs help, or if someone wants to share some quick information. After there's a general question "anything else you want to bring for the standup?" for the stuff we don't have a ticket for, or quick updates from PMs/EMs about things outside of our current scope/context. Any further discussion is taken after the standup, if some topic starts to grow into a discussion we are strict about bringing it for discussion with the interested ones right after the standup. Those discussions never last more than 20-30 min, if they need more time we schedule a meeting with proper agenda, etc. Whenever I worked at a place with dysfunctional ones I either managed to help correct course, or quit the job. To me teams with good standup hygiene will very likely have meetings/processes hygiene as well, and is a very good signal of a well functioning team.

wiz21c 3y ago
> or quit the job. sadly it took me years to understand that this is a perfectly valid solution. But damn, that's so hard to do (at least to me :-))
helboi4 3y ago
Would love to suggest this. Might be bold as a fairly new junior though haha. I do think these meetings would make far more sense if we only discussed things that people had issues with. If everyone's just rambling it's pointless. My standup are rarely an hour but they are often about 30 mins which is already just unnecessary most days. The thing I hate most is sprint planning and refinement. People make such big deals about everything and it can easily last over an hour. I especially hate all the drama about making sure our workload is right and moaning about how long things will take and politics and such. I'm starting to think it's some sort of cult of unproductivity ever since the senior frontend guy said that an angular upgrade would take us 2 years and loads of seniors so it's not worth starting this year. It's a massive load of version but ain't no way that's gonna take 2 years and that we can't do it with the one senior frontend, one mid frontend and one junior fullstack (me).

ben_w 3y ago

Depends how they're done. I try to push for people to actually stand up during a stand up, because that encourages the meeting to be short and to the point, not an hour of pointless waffle (and if it's an hour long meeting, waffle is probably an apt description).

meindnoch 3y ago
Standing up is not enough for some managers to cut it short. I recommend standing on one leg, or keeping your arms raised.
- amarant 3y ago
  I once worked at a company that decided to do Samson's chair during standup. It was brutally effective, especially those who went last sounded like a new Eminem single. Standupps went from >30 to <1 minute immediately
  - icameron 3y ago
    I just had to look that up. It’s another name for a wall sit. Brutal!
helboi4 3y ago
YES. I remember watching day in the life of a se videos like 7 years ago when I was 18ish and vaguely considering the career (I didn't go for it and took a long route), and I remember distinctly that the whole point of stand up was that you STAND. it's in the name and its like that for a reason. Now, having started in the industry, I was so confused that people ignore the whole imperative of the name and make it into the exact sort of sprawling business meeting that it's not supposed to be.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
I can't stand for more than a couple minutes before my back hurts. I propose that whoever is talking must stand. This punishes people who get into details of their task, and nobody else.

sublinear 3y ago

If you find that people need to discuss so much that it takes too long and people aren't paying attention, those discussions need to go into another meeting. Having a good product owner is important for coordinating meetings in general. Standups should be for tracking progress on tasks and nothing more. If someone is blocked they should briefly state why and follow up ASAP, but after the standup.

randomdata 3y ago
> Standups should be for tracking progress on tasks and nothing more. Then what's the point? I probably don't care about someone's status in the first place, and when I do a big fat notification informs me when the status has changed the second it changes. "Duh. I'm still working on it, obviously." doesn't tell me anything. > If someone is blocked they should briefly state why and follow up ASAP If someone is blocked by my doing, they would have already told me 23.5 hours[1] before the scheduled meeting came around, when they became blocked. I don't need to hear it a second time. If it has nothing to do with me, I don't care. What's the point? [1] Or even longer if not on a daily meeting schedule. Way too long if you sit around and wait for the meeting to finally come around before talking to anyone.
- sublinear 3y ago
  I used to think like this before I worked on projects with more coordination and visibility than just other devs. The daily standups are for management and whoever else is invited from time to time. You're 100% correct that you shouldn't wait for tomorrow's standup to discuss something technical with another developer. You shouldn't be getting lost in the weeds during standups anyway. That's one of many reasons standups can take forever. Also, a well run standup can be as simple as one person sharing their screen while walking through the tasks and asking yes/no questions. You don't need everyone to speak all the time because as you said that wastes time. Anyone can read the issues statuses at any time or query what they need. These meetings are for more insightful questions than that from management: "You and a couple of other devs on this story said your tasks are blocked because this servicenow ticket for another team is still in progress? I've reached out and they said they're going to be done by noon. Will you complete your in progress tasks by then or should we reassign or push their dates back so you can continue this higher priority ticket?" ... "Great I'll update the backlog for the sprint starting next week and your time in the capacity tracker" ... "You scheduled PTO? We've got everything all set for the next sprint so no worries. Have a nice vacation!" It's not a dream. Agile done right is like this. If you hate the idea of a meeting like this it's possible your managers suck and don't listen to you. They're supposed to be working for you to keep the runway clear. When they hear all the status updates all at once in daily meetings they should be getting ready for the next sprint and coming up with good ideas behind the scenes. That includes bringing in resources, making sure dependent tasks on other projects are completed so you don't get blocked, etc.

someotherperson 3y ago

* Alternate different people at random to run the standup * Control people who talk for too long or go into detail that's not worthwhile * If you have a board, run through each ticket in progress/in review for a casual update, record it as a note * Have an icebreaker (1 minute) before or after, ie "fun fact of the day" or something and randomly choose people to do it * Ends with a section on anything else to add, if anyone is blocked, whatever, and have people break out into their own meetings if necessary * If it spills over 15 minutes then continue to trim down on the update complexity

giantg2 3y ago
You forgot the most important part - buy-in from management. It wouldn't surprise me if they're the reason the updates are lengthy.
- someotherperson 3y ago
  That's true, but some people also just like to ramble
  - giantg2 3y ago
    The rambling is easier to correct than having a boss that wants an in-depth status on every ticket.
bobek 3y ago
Or go written. It is a great fit for some teams.
- Spivak 3y ago
  So called "async standups" are fantastic. The only thing that changes between 5:00p and 9:00a the next day is I've typically forgot what I'm working on so being able to post my standup for tomorrow at the end of the day is so nice.
TimTheTinker 3y ago

ecf 3y ago

In my personal experience I’ve found stand ups are incredibly easy to sidetrack. One dev starts going into too much detail about a troublesome aspect of their ticket instead of simply stating what the problem is and then organizing a time after the standup to meet with the colleague best suited to assist. Standups shouldn’t be a rubber duck session with the entire team.

p1necone 3y ago

Imo standups shouldn't have more than 5 or 6 people in them. If there's more than that you're probably not all working closely enough for the standup to provide much value - find some nice cutting point in the project, split into smaller teams.