Daily Meetings – More Than Just Standing Up and SharingMarco António SilvaSolutions Architectmadasi@microsoft.com

Who is Marco António Silva?

This Talk Was Based On…

• Jason Yip’s paper – “It's Not Just Standing Up: Patterns for Daily Stand-up Meetings”;

• Some other books and articles I’ve read…

• My personal experiences and learnings

The Three Bains

Robert Maurer, Leigh Ann HirschmanThe Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time

Kaizen

Kaizen, Japanese for "improvement." When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers

to activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to the assembly line

workers. […]

Source: wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

The format for this talk

There is no one size fits all solution or approach… and nothing will work

forever…

You need to always be in a learn and adapt cycle

Definition of Daily Meeting / Stand-up Meeting

“The whole team meets every day for a quick status update. We stand up to keep

the meeting short.”

Stand-ups are a mechanism to regularly synchronise so that teams...•Share understanding of goals. •Coordinate efforts. •Share problems and improvements. •Really become a team.

Deciding who attends (and who doesn’t)

All Hands Meeting

All Hands MeetingPros:• Great to reduce

additional status update meetings

• Great to create, drive and bring everybody on-board

• Puts the responsibility on everyone to seek out the information they need

All Hands MeetingCons:• People not directly

involved can disrupt the meeting

• People outside the team may not know the rules

• Outsiders may feel the need to get involved and to share like everyone else… although they shouldn’t

• 1-1 discussion may arise

• Too many questions due to not being a regular at meetings

Work Items Attend

Work Items Attend“if the stories are so important to the project, they

ought to be the ones speaking in the stand-up”

Brian Marick, "Latour 3: Anthrax and standups“http://www.exampler.com/blog/2007/11/06/latour-3-anthrax-and-standups/

Work Items AttendPros:• Keeps the meeting

focused on the work and not on reporting what each has done

• Task blockers are more likely to be raised and handled

• People are more focused on the committed backlog

Work Items AttendCons:• Introverts may not

share their problems or views

• Some problems may stay hidden for some time

• Risk of becoming a meeting where the Scrum Master just goes through the backlog

Visual Studio – Kanban / Scrum Board

How to Present in a DM…

The Three Questions1. What did I accomplish yesterday?2. What will I do today?3. What obstacles are impeding my

progress?

The Three QuestionsGoals• Minimum set of

structure to achieve the Goal of the DM

• Defer from discussions that are outside the scope of the DM

• Keep things fast• Avoid waste

The Three QuestionsSometimes ends up being about:• Reporting to the Scrum

Master and not the team…• I’m only there to share

what I did and I don’t care what the others are doing…

• I need to make it look like I’m very busy…

Reorder The Three Questions

1. Any impediments in your way?2. What are you working on today?3. What have you finished since

yesterday?

Olve Maudal, "Daily Stand-up Meetings - Perhaps the third question should go first?“

https://olvemaudal.com/2008/05/15/daily-stand-up-meetings-perhaps-the-third-question-should-go-first/

Make them Motivating1. What you did to change the world

yesterday2. How you are going to crush it today3. How you are going to blast through any

obstacles unfortunate enough to be standing in your way

Answering these types of questions completely changes the dynamic of the stand-up. Instead of just standing there and giving an update, you are now laying it all the line and declaring your intent to the universe.

Jonathan Rasmusson, The Agile Samurai: How Agile Masters Deliver Great Software

Why only three questions?1. What did you complete yesterday?2. What do you commit to today?3. What are your impediments/obstacles?

4. What Code Smell/Missing Unit Test/… did you spot yesterday?

5. What improvement did you make to the code yesterday?

Mark Levison, "Daily Stand-Up Variations“https://agilepainrelief.com/notesfromatooluser/2011/01/daily-stand-up-variations.html

Remember the Kaizen Philosophy

Do we need the first question?1. What did I accomplish yesterday?2. What will I do today?3. What obstacles are impeding my

progress?

Visual Studio – Dashboards

Visual Studio – Dashboards

Who talks Next?

Round RobinPros• Simple rule to execute

Round RobinCons• There’s always the

question of who starts• It’s very predictable and

may lead to people only really listen to the person that talks before them…

Last Arrival Speaks FirstPros• Simple rule to decide who

starts• Everyone knows that if

you’re late, everyone is standing up waiting for you to arrive

Last Arrival Speaks FirstCons• Probably the last person

to arrive is the least prepared…

Pass the TokenPros• You could use a

bouncing ball, pen or toy

• Can be used to add a random factor to the order

• Keeps people on their feet during the meeting

• Helps remove side-conversations

• Helps keep the pace of the meeting

Pass the TokenCons• With big teams it can

be tough to memorize who has spoken already

• If seen from outsiders could discredit the importance of the meeting

Split The Subjects“Another issue with the conventional format

is that tasks or workstreams aren't discussed coherently; instead, each

subject comes up briefly depending on the order in which team members

speak. This can make it hard to tell what's really going on.”

Dave Nicolette, "An alternative format for the daily stand-up“https://dzone.com/articles/alternative-format-daily-stand

Split The SubjectsPros• People will retain

easier each subject• People will pay more

attention to others on working on the same subject

• It will make meetings faster and more streamline

Split The SubjectsCons• Meeting setup will

become more complex• People will tend to only

pay attention to their subject and disconnect for others

• You may eventually question if you shouldn’t divide the team into a scrum of scrums…

Walk The WallPros• Self managed process• It’s visual

Walk The WallCons• You need a Kanban

Board• This tends to become a

Reporting to the Leader meeting

• With large teams this can become too long

How do we keep the Energy Level Up?

The problem that I frequently see crop up is that people have a tendency to treat the Daily Stand-up as simply individual reporting. “I did this . . . I’ll do

that”—then on to the next person. The more optimum approach is closer to a football huddle.

[…]I want teams emerging from that meeting saying things like, “Let’s nail this. Let’s do this.” The

team needs to want to be great.

Jeff Sutherland, Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time

Football Huddle• Bring everyone

closer• Breaks

psychological barriers

• People pay more attention

Stand Up• Prevent People

from Storytelling• Having one’s

back against a wall is not standing up…

• Everyone should be able to tell the team that meeting is taking too long

15 mins or Less• Your brain will

wander after 15mins

• Time your meeting

• Publish the times

• Time is a proxy for energy, attention, and pace

Take it offline• Everyone should

be attentive to this and interrupt people’s discussions or storytelling

• Use a simple phrase like “Take it offline”

The 2 Hands Rule...if anyone thinks the current conversation has

gone off topic, or is no longer effective, then they raise a hand. Once a second person

raises a hand then that’s a sign to stop the conversation and continue with the rest of the

stand up. Those speaking can continue the conversation after the stand up has finished.

Benjamin Mitchell, "Stuck in an overlong Agile stand up? Try the two hands rule“

https://blog.benjaminm.net/2012/02/23/overlong-agile-stand-up-two-hand-rule/

End Strong• Signal the end of

the meeting• Have a war cry!!• Use each others

energy to uplift the team everyday

How to encourage Autonomy?

Tag a Teammate In• Swap the meeting

facilitator• Keep people more

attentive and conscientious

• At some point you may lose the need for the facilitator

Break Eye Contact• Use this to remind

the speaker that he should be addressing the team

• Move around if needed to re-enforce this

What should I do Next?

I endured regular stand-up meetings for three years. What made the meetings most painful was my boss (I'll

call him Wally). His main reason for the stand-up meeting was not to increase efficiency or embrace XP

as much as it was to shorten human interaction beyond anything directly related to the work

product. ... For Wally, however, the stand-up meeting (like the 7 a.m. Monday meeting and the 5 p.m. Friday meeting) was a loyalty test designed to reinforce the

employer- employee relationship.

Phillip A. Laplante, "Stand and Deliver: Why I Hate Stand-Up Meetings"

Identify when your DM is going PoorlyLook out for symptoms like:• Focused on the Runners, not

the Baton

Identify when your DM is going PoorlyLook out for symptoms like:• Focused on the Runners, not

the Baton• Reporting to the Leader

Identify when your DM is going PoorlyLook out for symptoms like:• Focused on the Runners, not

the Baton• Reporting to the Leader• People are Late• Stand-up Meeting Starts the

Day... Late

Identify when your DM is going PoorlyLook out for symptoms like:• Focused on the Runners, not

the Baton• Reporting to the Leader• People are Late• Stand-up Meeting Starts the

Day... Late• Socialising

Identify when your DM is going PoorlyLook out for symptoms like:• Focused on the Runners, not

the Baton• Reporting to the Leader• People are Late• Stand-up Meeting Starts the

Day... Late• Socialising• I Can't Remember

Identify when your DM is going PoorlyLook out for symptoms like:• Story Telling

Identify when your DM is going PoorlyLook out for symptoms like:• Story Telling• Problem Solving

Identify when your DM is going PoorlyLook out for symptoms like:• Story Telling• Problem Solving• Low Energy

Identify when your DM is going PoorlyLook out for symptoms like:• Story Telling• Problem Solving• Low Energy• Pay attention to Obstacles• Obstacles are not Raised• Obstacles are not Removed• Obstacles are Only Raised in

the Stand-up

Remember the Kaizen Method• Small changes• Don’t spook the mid

brain• Be pacient

Marco António Silvamadasi@microsoft.com

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