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.
Love the blog :).
Standup was definitely born in a face-to-face context. Having participated in both face-to-face and by remote, I would say that there are some serious coordination issues in the remote version. It’s often difficult to hear exactly what some one else is saying — and there is somehow a high barrier to asking them to repeat it (it seems against the rules and spirit of standup somehow – although, interestingly, when present I would have had no problem telling some one that they couldn’t be heard…).
Have you considered trying a multi-person IM for standup with remote participants? This might put everyone on an even footing and develop its own habits and conventions. Of course, it has the downside of making everyone a “remote” participant, even when they’re working 20 feet from each other…
Another helpful modification with remote participants might be a coordinator role — some one to call out specifically what is going on, who’s up and to begin and end the sesssion. I’d have to give it some thought, but it seems like this might address a lot of the problems with remote participation. The moderator could even quickly summarize in bullet-point form the content of what each person says as they “move the token” from person to person (or just name the projects the person has worked on and is working on, for example).
I think that – regardless of group size – with a remote standup, starting with one’s name is a very good convention to promote. It’s only “obvious” who is speaking to those “in the room”.
Again, cool blog! – Tom
I think the 3 or more way phone conference stand-up is difficult to coordinate. The timing has to be just right for everyone to participate. I agree with Tom that IM may work better in this instance. I meeting organizer can easily invite everyone that is available into a chat. The downside is that it’s less personable. Video IMing would be ideal, but I don’t think we have the hardware in place to do that yet.
Everyone should be required to tell a short joke, like a knock-knock joke, because, after all, this is called “Stand-up.” Actually, knock-knock jokes are ideal, because then everyone can participate.
Also — if this isn’t already being done — if two people present as a pair, they should both hold onto the token at the same time, as though they were holding hands.
In all seriousness, I liked this suggestion from Tom: “Another helpful modification with remote participants might be a coordinator role: some one to call out specifically what is going on, who’s up and to begin and end the sesssion.”
However, although I think that the meetings need more coordination as a result of off-site participants, there are pros and cons to having an actual coordinator due to the probable insecurities of various individuals. If it is feasible, I would suggest creating a randomizing program which assigns a speaking order to each meeting. People would simply need to remember who presents before them. No personalities are hurt. It may also be of benefit to include “(off-site)” after the names of those who won’t be physically present, so that it won’t take anyone off-guard when a disembodied voice begins talking through the speaker phone.