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InfoQ Homepage News Patterns for Daily Stand-up Meetings Published

Patterns for Daily Stand-up Meetings Published

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Jason Yip has published "It's not just standing up", Patterns for Daily Standups on Martin Fowler's Bliki. In the article he discusses the benefits and consequences of common practices for daily stand-ups. The patterns are intended to help direct the experimentation and adjustment of new practitioners as well as provide points of reflection to experienced practitioners. James covers a number of patterns, some of which being:
  • All hands - Have interested stakeholders attend the daily status meetings instead of having multiple separate meetings/reports.
  • Pig and Chickens - Institute a rule where only the “committed” participate and the “involved” are only allowed to observe.
  • Same place, Same time - Don't change the time or place of your daily standups for any one individual.
  • Attend by Proxy - Every one must attend, if you can't, then call in, email a summary, or ask someone to represent you.
  • Use the standup to start the day.
  • Huddle - The stand-up should be more of a Huddle, than a meeting. If it's difficult to hear, bring everyone closer.
  • Standup - Require that all attendees Stand Up. Use standing up to link physical with mental readiness.
  • 15 minutes or less - Keep the daily stand-ups to Fifteen Minutes or Less. Even shorter is even better.
  • Round Robin - Use a simple rule to determine who goes next, instead of letting a manager pick.
The article also discusses a number of smells that indicate that meetings aren't going well, such as people reporting to the manager instead of each other, coming in late, socializing, being interrupted, not sticking to the point, etc.

Another very nice book chapter on daily standup meetings was written by James Shore in his forthcoming book Art of Agile Development at. There are more preview chapters there, all very interesting.

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