TLDR: Yes. Well mostly.
Most people consider daily standups as part of being agile. Except, they really are not. I posit that they do not scale well and most organizations do them poorly.
Daily standups are bad
Why? Simple:
- They do not scale. Inevitably as your team scales the standup becomes less effective. They will take longer and/or people become disinterested.
- They are primarily oral. Important subjects may never be effectively communicated with non-attendees.
- Vacations. If you are not at the standup because you are off. You miss out.
- Timezones. If you are in a different timezone (hello remote organizations) – you either miss the meeting or have an uncomfortable standup time.
- Visibility. The rest of the organization misses the context and loses the ability to see how the sausage is made.
A remote friendly alternative
Recreate the daily standup in your teams chat or project management system. I like to use a template like:
There are several good “plugins” for doing this, but I always found a dedicated channel(s) to be the most useful.
This might looks like:
- {dept}-SU
- SU-{dept}
In practice this might look like:
- su-cs
- su-des
- su-dev
- su-mar
Breaking it down into pieces
Let’s evaluate each section of the template:
Yesterday I did:
- research on {topic}
redesign on {component/page} w/ @person1}- started Q3 marketing calendar
- + wrote blog post on {topic}
No one likes micro-managers. Why have we separated out yesterday into its own section? It’s because it helps a team be accountable to itself. And a team member to themself. It can also be a way of finding hidden blockers that haven’t been called out by the team. Most managers who might slide into micro-managing will stop when they can see/feel progress without needing to dive in. This helps a manager focus on removing blockers and helping the team vs diving into the details.
Things to note:
- strikethrough on items that I had planned to do, but didn’t accomplish
- + added for items that were not on my list, but that I did accomplish
- @mention people to highlight their work with you
Today I plan to:
- finish Q3 marketing calendar w/ @person2
- redesign on {component/page}
- outreach for yesterday’s blog post
In this section I carry over items from yesterday, as well as, add any new priorities for the day. If I need a person to work on an item – I’ll call it out to let them know.
Things to note:
- these are goals for the day
- its ok to miss some items
- its ok to hide or obscure something confidential
- its ok to not finish everything on the list
Blocker:
- waiting on @person3 to approve {topic}
This one is probably the one that most companies do not do effectively. It is not public shaming to call someone out as a blocker. It is highlighting a reality. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. In many cases it is very easy to forget you are a blocker. Honest organizations are better organizations. You have to assume positive intent.
Reminder:
- doing a demo on (instance} today at noon. DO NOT UPDATE TODAY.
- shoutout to @person4 for saving me yesterday w/ {topic}
- @me on PTO tomorrow
Not everything neatly falls into the other categories. I find most of the time this section might be blank.
Other advantages of asynchronous standups
This type of written/digest-able standup actually serves as a historical log of progress. It is extremely useful for new employees to get up to speed on the last several weeks/months of priorities, as well as, determine which coworkers work on particular projects/tasks.
It becomes EASIER TO HELP.
- Suzy: I see you are working on (topic}. I’ve worked on {topic} at another company. I’m new, but I have some particular thoughts on it. Let me know if you need help.
- Bob: That’s great. Can you put something together at {knowledge base location}? Then we can hop on a quick call to walk through it.
It becomes EASIER TO CATCHUP FROM PTO.
It becomes EASIER.
Now you can have your daily standup. A focused standup.
If you still want a daily standup (it does build camaraderie – have it. But now you can focus on:
- alignment
- shoutouts
- blockers
When should you post your status update?
I like to do it first thing in the morning. But, I’ve seen some members shift it to “Today I” AND “Tomorrow I Will” so they could post at the end of the day. Ideally you set a time when you want all the updates posted by that works for your organization.