Stand Up Meetings- Agile Way

The daily standup meeting is one of the core concepts of Scrum. In the meeting the team members talk about just three things:

• What I did yesterday
• What am I doing today
• What are my impediments

And that’s it…   However, the teams that I see can’t keep it that simple, there is always some banter ( a good sign of team happiness ) and extended discussion on what is going on that may derail the team or another team member.  If the discussion goes on for more than a few minutes we table the discussion for right after the standup.  While it’s important to keep the standup moving its more important not to squash communication.
Who should participate? Anyone who is involved or interested in the project.  Who should actually talk?  Only the folks directly involved in working on the backlog.  The other participants should keep their thoughts to themselves until they get a chance to talk to the Scrum Master away from the team.

Now I’m going to break the rule, one last thing at the end of the standup I want to know if there are any announcements.  This is a time for individuals that are close to the project but not working on the Product backlog to give the team any information that is valuable for the team.  Usually I limit who can give announcements to a very few trusted individuals.

Daily Stand-ups.. keep them simple fast and open to the team.