Daily Standup Myths
How to avoid these!
--
The standup
A daily standup meeting is performed during Sprints, and functions to keep members of the development team aligned in order to reach the goal of the sprint. This Sprint Goal should be negotiated between the Product Owner and Development Team and this should be SMART (Specific - Measurable — Achievable — Realistic and Time-Constrained) during the Sprint Planning meeting.
However there are a host of bad practices that can occur in these short but important meetings that log the progress of the team.
Myth: You must stand up
You don’t need to stand up in a stand up! The idea behind the stand up part is that the meetings are kept short.
You need to distinguish between a short productive meeting and a waste of time, but the distinguishing feature of a productive meeting certainly isn’t whether you are physically standing up.
Myth: The individual focus
Many organisations let the daily stand up degenerate into “I did this…I will do this…” which certainly isn’t ideal.
The analogy often used for stand up meetings is that they should be like the huddle of a sports team, the energy is important as well as the focus on the whole team.
Physical proximity can help, bringing in the circle of the development team and encouraging sharing and productive outcomes.
Myth: All stand up meetings should be 15 minutes
For some teams 15 minutes might actually be too long. After 15 minutes of talking, most people are going to lose focus and their attention goes elsewhere — so a well-run SCRUM meeting has a maximum duration of 15 minutes, rather than setting that arbitrary time span as a target to attempt to meet.
Myth: After everyone has spoken, go back to your work
People remember the beginning and the end of a meeting. A strong beginning and a strong end to a SCRUM meeting will result in stronger performance from the team as a whole. Therefore ending a meeting strongly, with a pronouncement or intention to work statement encourages the…
