Jeff, what should I say to remote teammates who don’t see the value of a Daily Standup over a weekly status meeting? Are we saving time?
One reason people struggle with the daily standup is that they do not have faith in the notion that even information should be shared and delivered incrementally and iteratively.
If we meet five days a week for 15 mins, we’re really meeting for about 90 mins a week, if you include going to the meeting and back, so we’re not “saving time.” But what we are doing is learning a little every day, reflecting on what we heard each day, and advancing our own thinking on what is discussed each day. This is opposed to slugging through a long meeting waiting for it to end – so it’s good stuff.
Teams that don’t get this tend to have long DSUs. I was observing a team at a large auto supplier who routinely had 40 minute DSUs. It was so awful that they decided they didn’t need it every day!
At our company we do a company-wide standup every day at 2PM. We’re spread out all over the world, and we use telephone, Zoom, and other tools to get as many people as possible online at the same time. Our meetings run between 14–16 mins each day, and we’ve learned that the key is to follow the process, and let a scrum master run the meeting. We no longer have status meetings, and the DSU is our primary source of information sharing.
Good luck!
