How to run effective daily stand-up meetings
Team meetings have their place within a workplace, but for some things, they’re not very effective. For one, they tend to last way longer than necessary, eating into valuable time that could be spent on something more productive.
To combat this, stand-up meetings have become increasingly popular, as they are far more efficient for quick, daily meetings than typical sit-down meetings. Stand-ups don’t just save time during the meeting; they can also save time because they don’t require booking a specific meeting space, as they can be held in any communal area.
A stand-up meeting is probably not appropriate for a 1-2-1 or a disciplinary meeting, but for quick updates that don’t require a presentation, a stand-up meeting is ideal.
Now, let’s take a deeper look into the history of stand-up meetings and how you can implement them to great effect within your team.
Quick links:
- What is a stand-up meeting?
- The benefits of stand-up meetings
- How to run an effective stand-up meeting
- What are stand-up meeting best practices?
What is a stand-up meeting?
Unsurprisingly, a stand-up meeting (or standing meeting) is a meeting where its participants are on foot for the duration. Popular in both Agile and Kanban project management methodologies, the primary goal of stand-up meetings is to go over important tasks that have been finished, are in progress, or are about to be started.
Conducted at the same time each day and for the same duration (usually 15 minutes), the team meets to bring everyone up to speed on the most salient information for coordination: each team member briefly describes any ‘completed’ contributions, along with roadblocks that are in their way.
One of the main problems of regular meetings is that they tend to go on longer than planned. By keeping things to a specific time, topics that have the potential to start discussions are added to a list and discussed in greater detail by the parties who are most affected by the issues, ensuring others in the team don’t have their time impacted unnecessarily.
Colleagues standing in a small group discussing something. One of the women is holding documents and gesturing with her hands as the others watch and listen.
The benefits of stand-up meetings
Improved communication
Lacklustre communication is unhelpful at the best of times, but during a project, it can lead to all sorts of errors, issues and even failure. By outlining progress and detailing areas for improvement, the teams know where everyone is progress-wise, highlighting potential problems that need to be dealt with after the meeting is over.
Greater transparency
Likewise, stand-ups allow each team member to share their work with others, clearly identifying roles and responsibilities and preventing the creation of silos, which could stop work from progressing. Where possible, including cross-functional team members in daily stand-ups is also key to boosting transparency within the organisation, preventing teams from becoming insular and isolated.
Optimised trust
Because of the improved communication and transparency within the team, it’s only natural that trust is fostered as a result of daily stand-ups. With the joint understanding of roles, responsibilities, work objectives and outcomes, teams can start to see a stronger sense of trust among colleagues.
Greater highlighting of issues
There’s a chance that certain problems only come into view when a team comes together and talks through their various tasks and duties. No matter what department, this can help the team understand how certain tasks affect everyone within a business. One of the principles of agile methodologies is minimising the ‘blame game’ culture that can be prevalent in certain companies. Instead, agile and daily stand-ups embrace the change posed by particular challenges, allowing issues to come into focus, which can then be dealt with outside of the stand-up.
Helps to empower the team
With everyone having their own schedules to deal with, getting the opportunity to spend time together becomes increasingly infrequent. Standing together for 15 minutes each day helps to remind everyone involved how the team is there to support one another. While business objectives may differ, everyone is there for the same reason: to achieve these objectives. Stand-ups are a crucial reminder that you’re in this together.
How to run an effective stand-up meeting
The benefits of a stand-up meeting are numerous, but if you’re not running the meeting effectively, these benefits will dwindle to the point of inconsequence. By sticking to the following tips, you can ensure that your stand-up meeting is worthwhile and to the point.
Have a clear structure
Too much time is wasted in (bad) meetings deciding what needs to be talked about. Work out the agenda beforehand and make the entire team aware of it. The head of the meeting should enforce this agenda rigorously to ensure that the team doesn’t go off-topic.
For example, a simplified meeting agenda might look something like this:
Yesterday: X task was completed – were there blockers that may arise again?
Today: X task needs to be worked on – estimated time of delivery?
This informs the team of expectations, but also gives a chance for them to provide feedback to stakeholders in an efficient manner.
Have a time limit (and keep to it)
We’ve all been in a meeting that’s taken up far too much time, so to make sure this doesn’t happen during your stand-up meeting, stick to a time limit. If you say it’s going to last 10 minutes, it shouldn’t exceed these 10 minutes.
If the meeting requires updates from multiple members of the team, give them each a time limit of a minute or two, and keep them to it.
This might take a bit of practice, but eventually, the time limit will become almost natural. A time might also help to keep people aware of the time ticking down.
Rotate who leads the meeting
You can keep the engagement of your meetings high by rotating who leads the meeting, keeping things fresh and giving the entire team a chance to make their voice heard. The last thing you want from your stand-up meeting is for it to feel like a lecture, so switch things up.
Align at the end
At the end of the meeting, ensure that the entire team is aligned on the next steps. Things like deadlines, dependencies, and subsequent conversations that are needed must be highlighted to make sure the stand-up has been effective.
This doesn’t need to take up a huge amount of time; a simple, 30-second round-up at the end of the meeting will suffice.
What are stand-up meeting best practices?
- Involve everyone: Make sure each team member has the chance to speak and share updates concisely.
- Be consistent: Hold the meeting consistently to build a reliable habit.
- Physically stand up: Stay on your feet to keep energy high and help prevent rambling.
- Avoid status reports: Focus on team communication, collaboration, and removing obstacles, not reporting to a manager.
- Use feedback to improve: Regularly check if the format and frequency are working, and adapt as needed.
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