Daily Stand Up Meetings

"Having the best ideas, the sharpest code, or the most pragmatic thinking is ultimately sterile unless you can communicate with others." - Andy Hunt & Dave Thomas

Participating in long and unproductive meetings is not scalable and is disliked by the team. Long meetings top the list of things that waste most developers' time.

For an XP team, daily stand-up meetings are focused and brief, occurring at the start of the day and lasting up to fifteen minutes. The physical format (in-person) is simple: everyone stands in a circle, and each person speaks in a clockwise (or counter-clockwise) order. This helps the team stay aligned and continuously exchange knowledge.

3 Simple Questions

• What did I do yesterday?
• What will I do today?
• Are there any issues in my way?

By reporting what was done the previous day, you provide feedback and an update on the project’s status. It explains how you will spend your day and allows for practical daily planning. It also highlights any problems or obstacles you have so that other team members can assist and help resolve them.

Common Mistakes

• Status meetings
• Discussing solutions
• Team not seeing value
• Not having a fixed time
• No dedicated location
• Not listening
• Not meeting if someone is absent
• Not standing (in-person)

Benefits

Daily Stand-Up Meetings help keep the team updated and cohesive, strengthen and implement collective ownership, and ensure that everyone involved in the project knows what is happening. If there are any obstacles, it provides a way to communicate and request or offer help.