How to Run an Effective Stand-Up Meeting

Running effective meetings is one of the soft skills that is becoming more important than ever! There is no shortage of news and articles on how Jeff Bezos banned PowerPoint or how Elon Musk or Sundar Pichai run effective meetings.

Stand-up meetings are very important for agile teams and are different in few ways:

• Held daily
• Very short – 15 minutes
• Participation – everybody talks

MYTH: Stand-ups are status meeting

FACT: In a well-functioning stand-up people are standing in circles (before social distancing era) talking, having a conversation with each other. Each person talks about:

• What the status of what they’re working on is
• Are they getting close to what they are trying to achieve as it relates to them

Difference: In status update, the project manager talks in 1:M fashion to people who are listening, giving them the update on the status of the project.

Here is a format widely used my many teams:

• What was I working on yesterday and what did I accomplish?
• What will I do today?
• Am I on my way to achieve what want?
• What is obstacles/challenges impeding my progress?

Remember:

• Have 15-min daily stand-up among yourselves to keep up-to-date about each other’s progress and challenges.
• Mentors are going to join for a longer version (30n min weekly) to get update about team’s. progress and challenges (rather than individuals).
• We are doing it on MS Teams (not standing up in circles).
• It’s about communicate, coordinate and conquer.