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Definition of Daily Stand-Up

Daily stand-up, as the name suggests, is a daily status meeting among all the members of an agile team. It not only provides a forum for regular updates but also brings the impediments & blockers for team members into focus so that it can be quickly addressed. Daily stand-up is a must-do practice for 15-30 min on daily basis, no matter how an agile team is established regardless of its office location. For remote teams stand-up can be done via MS teams, Zoom & many other meeting tools.

Every member has to answer three important questions −

• What are the JIRA tickets I worked yesterday?
• What are the JIRA tickets I’ll do keep working on today?
• Any impediment/Blocker for I am facing & who are the owners?
• Daily stand-up is for status update, not for any discussion. For discussion, team members should schedule another meeting after Daily stand up.
• Generally, Work from office team members usually stand instead of sitting so that the meeting gets over quickly. But in remote meetings usually team work from its own comfort space, but yes scrum master can define ways of working with team for remote stand-up.

Who Attends a Stand-up?

• The scrum master (SM), the product owner (PO), and the delivery team should attend the stand-up daily.
• Stakeholders and Customers are encouraged to attend the meeting and they can act as an observer, but in real world they are not supposed to participate in stand-ups.
• It is the scrum master’s responsibility to take note of each team member’s queries and the impediments/blockers they are facing.

How to Run effectively Daily stand-up

Let’s talk about what makes a great stand-up and check out some of our examples.

1. Choose a time that works for everyone– In real world scenario mostly stand-ups for remote/Hybrid teams happen between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. EST so that offshore & onshore both teams can join the call. It gives everyone time to get context for the day and doesn’t require everyone to be an early riser on the team. For teams spread across different geographies, choose a time that works for all people. For example, team is spread between India and US. Their stand-up time is at 9:00 a.m. EST.
2. Keep stand-up efficient– It is scrum Master responsibility for stand-ups to keep everyone focused and to keep the stand-up efficient. Rotate who keeps time to make sure everyone is accountable and invested. Limit the duration of stand-ups to 15-30 mins–max.
3. Discuss about blockers & impediments-Team should talk about blockers & impediments. So that it don’t be a problem in long run. One of the main reasons that agile teams hold stand-up meetings is to identify any blockers to work. If team members aren’t surfacing any issues, this issue could spread to the rest of the team. Oftentimes, one team member’s work will be dependent on another’s’ work. If one person doesn’t surface the issue, it can become a blocker for everybody. This is why it’s important to discuss any issues during the stand-up meetings, so the issue doesn’t become a blocker for the entire team
4. Set Up Rules for The Meeting– Scrum master to create a team charter to define ways of working for a team.
5. Preparation Ahead of Time- Scrum master to facilitate the daily stand up & should be aware of stories & tasks on which team is working in a sprint.
6. Punctuality– Team should join the meeting on time so that daily stand-up finishes on time.
7. Use work management for Agile teams– If you want to implement Agile on your team teams, you need the right tools to keep everything organized. Make sure you have access to a dynamic tool to organize and manage your team’s work in one place. Manage stand-up meeting agendas and more in a work management tool like JIRA.

Make sure all team members participate

• Stand-up meetings are only effective if the entire team attend this call. That means the whole team should be present for every stand-up meeting. If a team member shares their update and leaves, the meeting is not as effective because that person will not hear other teammates if any dependency will be with a team member.
• The goal here is to stay connected with your team, both physically and mentally. Because the agile values face-to-face conversation and communication, these daily stand-ups are an important way to connect with the rest of your team. A good practice to follow is to start the meeting all together and end the meeting together.

Table side conversations

• It’s common for team members to discuss on problem solving during the stand-up call. Instead, table conversations like this should be conducted after the meeting. Make a record note of the issue, and then move to the next person for status update.
• After the stand-up meeting disperses, this is when those individuals who are looking to solve a problem can meet to try and dig through the problem.

Tips for daily stand-ups:

• Make team members visual – This gives visibility to all team members so you can connect with more than just the person that’s talking. MS teams/Zoom provides this functionality, as do other conferencing platforms.
• Reference your scrum board – Gathering “around” your team Scrum Board can be a powerful way to keep everyone on the same page. Your work board can help visualize each user story and work item as team members share what they’re working on and where they’re blocked. Scrum master should share the laptop/Desktop screen during the stand-up call.
• Be open to asynchronous stand-ups – For teams without overlapping work hours, asynchronous stand-ups are the way! Teams can comment on JIRA tickets to share updates.
• Appreciation– Scrum master should appreciate the team members for even small, small achievements in a sprint, always give constructive feedback one to one to team members not in big forums.

Stand-ups are just one part of a agile project management. Just like other scrum ceremonies like Sprint planning, sprint reviews and retrospectives, stand-ups take time and sprint to get right. Don’t be afraid to make improvements that suit your team and your program.

And don’t forget to have a fun in Friday’s stand-up (Keep it light for the team) !!