This is a question that got asked on a live stream panel I was part of recently. My initial reaction was blunt. Of course we do, and here�s all the evidence you have. But then I started thinking about...
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This is a question that got asked on a live stream panel I was part of recently. My initial reaction was blunt. Of course we do, and here�s all the evidence you have. But then I started thinking about it a little more deeply. I�ve come to the conclusion that no, you don�t need a daily stand-up. But it�s a rare situation where this is actually true.
What is a daily stand-up?
A core meeting of many Agile implementations is the daily stand-up. This is a short, collaborative planning session that the team will come together for at the beginning of every work day.
If this isn�t enough for you then I�d recommend checking out Jason Yip here: https://martinfowler.com/articles/itsNotJustStandingUp.html. Apart from disagreeing fundamentally with one of the first sentences he says, it�s effectively the definitive guide to daily stand-ups.
I know you�ll ask, it�s �The whole team meets every day for a quick status update.�. The daily stand-up is not a status update.
Daily stand-up origins
Originally discussed by James Coplien in the early 90s, Jim discussed the successful culture he had witnessed at the AT&T Bell laboratory. He cited the regular, high-quality meetings as a key success criterion.
Stand-ups quickly gained traction more widely when they heavily influenced the first iteration of Scrum, and then XP.
Since this incorporation into Scrum and XP, the practice of hosting a daily stand-up, roll call, huddle, or scrum has become almost synonymous with Agile.
Why you don�t need to do one
So this sounds great, why wouldn�t we bother? This is what I was asking myself when that question popped up on the panel. Under what circumstances would we actually be better off dropping it? And I came to the realisation that if you were in an environment where you operated with complete, collaborative, unscripted, high-bandwidth communication. Breathe. Then maybe you didn�t need a stand-up.
Assuming that your team works using last responsible moment update triggers for your flow of work, then a daily stand-up could actually become redundant. It could represent around 2 hours of team capacity being wasted on a meeting to discuss topics that everyone is already fully aware of.
Why you actually need to do one
Coming back to reality. This question is generally asked because the stand-up is no longer and has never operated as needed in a context. People are usually asking this question because things aren�t right, not because they�re too good. Some common reasons might be:
Lack of energyPeople waiting until the meeting to share important thingsPeople being lateMeeting running overWork not progressingIf you�re in one or more of these situations then I�d strongly recommend that you expend effort in resolving your challenges. The daily stand-up is, quite simply, one of the most important feedback loops you have in your system. I�m willing to bet that the daily stand-up actually represents one of your most frequent feedback loops. If you get rid of your once-a-day, then what�s the next most common? I�m betting your feedback loop just jumped to at least a week. How is this going to affect your business agility?
This isn�t an article on fixing your stand-ups, so refer to Yip until I get around to jotting down my own views. If you want to have a conversation around how you can work through some of your stand-up challenges in the interim, then please get in touch on the right.
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