“An hour of planning can save you 10 hours of doing.”
— Dale Carnegie
PURPOSE
“Standup” (aka “Daily Scrum”, “SUP”, “Daily”) is an effective technique of effective planning for the day. Syncing with each other on completed work, asking for support, and most importantly, sharing plans for the day, are the key components of the ceremony. It increase chances of better focus, working in a flow state, and being a high achieving team.
HOW TO RUN STANDUPS?
It is better to have a facilitator for the stand-up to have clear start and end, to structure the conversation. It is best to rotate this role between team members, so that everyone can experience both roles: active participant, and facilitator. If you are just getting started, ask for an expert to couch the team.
It’s best when everyone comes prepared and has a clear message about what was done, what he or she intends to achieve today and why that could be important for others. It is okay to use notes for conveying the message clearly. Everybody should be engaged and be ready to ask for clarification if needed. It can happen that the original plans change during the alignment when some colleagues see a benefit of uniting their forces (for example, in favour of more important task). Remember, focus on finishing the work that was already started to reduce work-in-progress(WIP). For that, when sharing plans, welcome other people to join you on your task.
FORMATS
There are many formats you can use. Teams are free to experiment and find the format that is most productive for them.
The most common is a three questions format: “Where did you progress yesterday? What do you aim to do today? What dependencies or impediments do you have?” The final answer gives colleagues a chance to help each other.
Another one is for the teams who use Kansan board and it’s called “Walking the board (from right to left)”.
If short standups don’t bring enough alignment, you can experiment with the format, where standup has a longer agenda, with additional points, such as:
- “are there any pairing opportunities — on which tasks can we work in pairs”
- “inbox — any unplanned tasks were discovered yesterday”
- “priority check — are the priorities still right?
- “focus on Sprint goal — asking about a confidence of achieving a Sprint goal”
- “availability during the day and upcoming absences”
Teams can go far in their experimentation, up to the point with changing a “Round robin” (where people take turns and talk one after another) with a format called “Task based stand up”. In that format people speak briefly and frequently around the tasks. Beware, that this format does not insure equal participation and can be used only as a temporary solution.
ENERGY
A good stand up triggers action. The full-fledged discussions should be avoided if there is anyone who doesn’t benefit from having that information. Postpone those discussions by saying “Let’s talk about this more after the meeting” and make sure the facilitator follows-up right after the standup. Whiting notes could help with capturing all items that got postponed.
It’s best when after the standup team members don’t go directly into working individually, but talk with each other (usually in pairs) about their tasks in depth. For that to be possible don’t schedule important meetings directly right after the stand-up.
End the meeting on a high note and share positive energy.
Continuously improve your standup. Use retrospectives to suggest improvements and learn what other team members think about them. Make your standup rock!
The power of the standup is in a habit that it induces a very well coordinated development team to get their issues resolved quickly. It also brings transparency between all team members with its knowledge transfer effect to address bus factor.
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