Agile Project Management : Stand Up – Agile way to conduct meetings
Agile Project Management : Stand Up – Agile way to conduct meetings
Agile Project Management – Stand Up
As we are already in several weeks on a lock down situation, many of us would have been working from home (virtual office). You may be using various methods to conduct or attend meetings such as video-conferencing, telephone conference, internal tools, chat tools and many more ways. You may be facing a tight schedule daily with back-to-back meetings. Some of us may be managing various projects and the respective team members are now working from a virtual environment.
Recently, there are many organization embracing Agile way of working. When we dive into Agile, there are many techniques aimed to ensure the effectiveness of Agile implementation in project management. One of a technique is “Stand Up Meeting”. As the name itself is self-explanatory, it typically means a meeting in which the participants typically participate while standing in a circle ( in current situation , you may opt to sit down as you will be conducting virtual meetings ). Stand Up is one of the fundamental part of Agile development but Stand Up only itself does not make your team Agile.
The Stand-Up provides the regular touch point for the team, improving communication, eliminating other meetings, and keeps the team in sync with what everyone else is working on. You may want to cut down multiple meetings daily in discussing the same matter over and over again. This is to ensure the team members are more productive rather than not wasting time in just attending meetings the entire day. Stand Up promotes a sense of common mission for iteration. It also provides :
- Increased transparency and communications between team members.
- Help each other overcome blockers as quick as possible.
Photo by Christina Morillo
Let’s look into some details about Stand Up meeting.
Stand Up Details
Participants
Cross-Functional Team
Recommended time for Stand Up
15 minutes (time-boxed)
Tasks (Stand Up Meeting Ideas)
- Identify your cadence – Find a regular Stand-Up time that works for all team members involved especially if you have teams spread across different geographies. Strike a balance between the need for regular alignment with your team’s need for uninterrupted work time. The Stand Ups will be led by Iteration Manager that will be chosen from the team by rotation basis. This will give an opportunity to everyone in the team to take responsibility in managing Stand Ups.
- Come together at the regularly scheduled time. Every participants need to hear closely to their team members. Each team members need to answer these 3 questions :
- Doing : What have you completed since the last stand-up?
- To-do: What will you complete by the next stand-up?
- Blockers: What are the blockers keeping you from successfully completing your tasks?
3. Finish quickly – If everyone has given their update, end the Stand Up early. If team members need to have a discussion or make announcements, do it after the stand-up, not during it.
There are many Agile tools we can use to monitor, track and update your Stand Ups such as Trello, Mural and many more out there. The team members are all responsible to ensure the tool is always to date.
Stand Up is just a component in Agile program. Feel free to make improvements of your Stand Up during your Retrospective sessions as Agile always nurture continuous improvements and this will also make Stand Ups more effective. Most important, have fun during Stand Up as this is all about team collaboration.