If you are involved in the tech start-up community, chances are you’re familiar with the stand-up meeting. For readers who aren’t, though, here’s a brief introduction to the internal meeting process here at Software for Good.
The stand-up meeting, also known as:
- Daily scrum
- Daily huddle
- Morning roll-call
Three questions are posed to each member of the team:
- What did you do yesterday?
- What will you do today?
- What’s preventing you from making progress?
Why?
- For everyone to be in the loop
- To reinforce the power of a team
- To stretch those sitting legs
No, but really, why do we have to stand up?
- Sit-down version: When team members sit down around a conference table, the meeting might lack a sense of urgency. Distractions are likely to occur, conversations might linger, discussions could last longer than necessary, people might be inclined to chit chat, get off-topic, daydream, etc.
- Stand-up version: Brevity.
Tips from other stand-up crowds:
- Pass around some kind of magic speaking wand.
- Hold the stand-up right before lunch.
- Enforce a $1 charge to all employees who show up late. (This one seems silly. I could maybe get behind it if the money was going into a piggy bank reserved for office drinks.)
The proof is in the paper:
- In a 1999 research study, Allen Bluedorn of the University of Missouri found that standing meetings, usually at only one-third the length of sitting meetings, produced just as quality ideas and outcomes.
Music to signal the stand-up:
- Bob Marley
- Ben E. King
- One Direction (don’t actually play this one)
Props to the Wall Street Journal for the idea behind this blog post.