Author: Dunrie

My goals for standup are:

• actually communicate
• get remote folks more familiar with each other (make Chicago and Berlin friends ;))
• provide a forum so that I can act less as a clearinghouse/sole gate for communicating with remote folks (though I realize this is much of my job and will continue to be a big part)

We’ve moved to IM/chat standup as a test to solve the fact that remote folks have a very hard time hearing us quiet folks at HQ.

So far, the two standup addicts (me and talltom) are very chatty and slow, and the two IM pros are quick and to the point. I like the quickness, and to that end will try to type up a quick summary first and paste it in, but I miss something from the less efficient exchange of additional info and personality, so I think I’m going to continue to prattle a bit and encourage others to be a little less efficient if they are so moved.

Essentially, I think standup is a bit more than a task list–it is some kind of weird vehicle for team. Not only do we get a sense of what the larger group is doing on a task level, but at its best we get a glimmer for how individuals are doing at it. I miss some of the additional information exchange that happens when people go off topic or make a joke. But, I’ve been one of the people “in the room” for the conference call standups, so perhaps IM standup is actually a higher-bandwidth channel for the remote folks….

At a minimum, at least we’ve coined some new web acronyms: lbcot (let’s be careful out there-thanks to Stephen).

So, a “stand-up” meeting is a communication ritual from Extreme Programming (XP). The developers were sick of long, boring meetings wasting all their time, so someone came up with the idea of ritualizing a quick and productive status meeting. Stand-up has to be short because no one is allowed to sit down.

I believe in stand-up, it works. While I have perpetuated the stand-up ritual in my new job, extending it to a mixed group of physically present and physically remote folks is challenging. It is harder when some have never participated in a stand-up “in person”. Still, the benefit of this quick check-in with (and I hope for) the remote folks outweighs the awkwardness.

Here are some general ground rules:

• Stand-up happens at the appointed time with whomever is present. Currently ours happens at 10:30 AM, Eastern
• Everyone stands
• Participants pass a token: only the person holding the token speaks
• The token-holder(s) should update the team on what has been accomplished since the last stand up, and what is coming this day. In a big or unfamiliar group, the token-holder starts with their own name, “Hi, I’m Joe, and today…” or in a paired environment, “Hi, I’m Joe,” “and I’m Susan, and we’re…“
• The token-holder can ask the group for help to solve a problem, though things are solved off-line after stand-up with the appropriate folks
• Stand-up should be called by an inanimate object rather than a person
• The person at the end has to say “let’s be careful out there” or some variant on that phrase to close the meeting

Here are some ideas for making stand-ups happen with remote team members

• Tokens need to be passed “virtually” to and back from conference call participants, with the order called out
• Remote team members should be responsible for getting their own inanimate objects to remind them (alarm in calendar)

Rules of thumb for part-time team members

• Part time folks should attend stand-ups part of the time.

I’m curious what others who have tried this think needs to be added to our ritual or to this description.