Lately, I have been thinking about how we could execute our stand-up meeting better. Usually when I start questioning the effectiveness of something I like to refocus on the intended value.

I recalled a post I read quite a while back by Mike Cottmeyer on Why Your Stand up Probably sucks . In the post he made the point that I still think is the key to the stand-up … team commitment.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having a daily stand-up, it’s a great practice. The thing you have to realize though is that three questions are just a starter kit… they help you understand the kinds of things you might want to talk about… they are not the reason you meet for your daily meeting. As a Scrum team, you have made a commitment to your customer, and to yourselves, to deliver a certain amount of product at the end of the sprint. The daily Scrum is a recurring opportunity for the team to get together and discuss their progress against that shared commitment.

Agile purists may want to skip the next paragraph

Since we currently function as many small, or individual, teams due to competing projects and priorities it means not all members of our software team were present to accept in the commitments made by proxy. However, we still want to make sure we deliver kick-ass products and that every product and team member is successful. In order to help make sure that happens we need to understand what commitments have been made and if there are roadblocks to delivering them, such as needing a shared resource, etc. The stand-up is our opportunity to relay that information.

In the stand-up I try to be very clear on the commitments that have been made and if any are in jeopardy.

I would love to hear whether you find your stand ups effective or not, what value you get from them, and things that you have tried in order to get or provide value.

Let us know in the comments below.