Standup is the most useful meetings on your calendar when done well... or a dreaded time suck you multitask through. Here's how to adapt your standup for the challenges your team is facing, today.
HEADS UP!
This playbook assumes you already know the basics of running a standup, but you can always check out The Standup Guide for more in-depth information about the building blocks and philosophy of an awesome standup.
When you just want a status update
- Don't have a standup.
- Standup is NOT the time to deliver status updates
- Not for you, not for your boss, not for a project manager... you get the point
- Hopefully you have tools that can tell you the status of the project
When a project/sprint is getting started
This
When a deadline is near
When things are going smoothly
When things are behind
When there is chaos outside of the team's control
When the team's priorities aren't clear
When the team need to collaborate
When folks aren't focused on the right things
When you identify bottlenecks to delivery
Scan the board, is there a particular status that things are getting stuck in? If so, use the generalized statuses below to get unstuck.
Ready to Deploy (or some flavor of "get it out the door")
- This is a great time to ask the team to pause new work for a few hours and get the accumulated work out the door
- Long term, you may invest in a release train or continuous deployment to remove this completely
Ready for QA (or some flavor of testing)
- Ask the QA(s) if there is anything preventing them from testing
- Ask the team to rally behind QA and spend the next few hours prioritizing the things that would speed them up or unblock them
- If there are large dependencies holding things up, see if there is a way to brainstorm with the team to find a path forward with the pieces you have right now
In Code Review
- Ask the team to prioritize code review before writing any new code for the next few hours
- Have people share links to their open PRs as they give their updates
- Consider working with the team to establish a routine time for for code review if this frequently occurs
In Progress (or some flavor of "working on it!")
- Ensure priorities are crystal clear to the team, they may be juggling too many things because they are not aligned on which of those things matter the most
- Ask teams to "put down" any tickets they have not actually started or work
they may have hit "pause" on by moving them back to a TODO-style status
- Many tools will use time in progress to calculate metrics like cycle time (how long it took you to do a given task), so ensuring things are only in progress when they are actively being worked on can be very important
- If any one person has a lion's share of the work, see if the team can actively "load balance" by using standup to take tickets off that person's plate and re-assigning them to someone less busy
TODO
- This may be normal, all work often starts in a TODO state
- As the project or sprint go on, if work is not leaving this status you may
want to focus on velocity/throughput/burndown with the team to make sure
everyone can gauge the status of the project
- Giving smart people the tools they need to adjust their own trajectory is a key reason standup exists in the first place
- Ask the team what can be done to get "back on track"
When the team could (or could not) use some face time
- Is your team in-person, hybrid, or in a "cameras on" company?
- The team may be relieved to have a meeting where they don't have to be "on"
- What time is your standup?
- If your standup is in the morning, teams may appreciate an audio-only format where the only thing that matters is connecting and getting down to business
- Seeing one another is nice, but seeing yourself in a square can also be a distraction for many
- Some might feel pressured to prep their appearance instead of their notes or be hesitant to grab a cup of coffee or pace the room - both of which often help people absorb information
- Standup should be about moving the project and team forward, not being self-conscious
- Do you have nero-divergent people or anyone that may be prone to stagefright
on the call?
- Having "all eyes on you" may be distracting or intimidating for some
- For many nero-divergent people, maintaining eye contact can be difficult and exhausting
- Is your team fully-remote?
- If your team doesn't get time to have "water cooler" conversations and connect, you may want to ask your team if they'd be excited to "see" each other in a cameras-on format once (or more) a week
- Making it an optional treat the team can look forward to vs a mandatory obligation allows the fun to flow in a way that dictatorial regimes could never
When the meeting could use a little more... fun
- Give shoutouts for birthdays, work anniversaries, and wins
- Pick a question to answer alongside each person's update
- This could be an "ice breaker", a silly would-you-rather, trivia, etc
- I find the more absurd the better: "Would you rather have watermelons for hands or broccoli for legs?"
- Start a water-cooler conversation before the call "starts"
- Pop culture, hobbies, and personal connections are all great
- Avoid the usual awkward turtles: politics, sex, drugs, controversy, etc
- Play a shared team Spotify playlist at the start and/or end of the call
