A poorly run (daily) Stand-up can deceptively suggest things are going great as meeting and talking about work stuff gives a sense of purpose, a sense of achievement. It suggests things are happening, moving tickets across the board, ticking-off the tasks. Like breathing in and breathing out. Awesome. IF you really want to make them ineffective try;
- Not worrying about attending. After all, it is voluntary. You can simply slack your status, gives you another 15 minutes to wake up. 30 even since the team typically takes a coffee afterwards.
- If you are the leader of the group, sometimes you can just not show up (because you are too busy preparing for an important meeting), or show up late (because it is raining so you could not come by bike). That takes the edge out of the meeting, and the team will not feel so stressed about attending and about being on time. Set the example.
- Best of all, do not pay attention when others are speaking. Instead, do something else. For example, check the weather on your phone, or better start cleaning up your post-its on the board. Especially with a physical board you can sort of scuffle around. Won’t hinder at all.
I am sure there are more ways to mess up your Stand-up, but the above is already enough to make what could be the heartbeat of the team digress into a daily meaningless ritual. Which is a pity, since the Stand-up actually is an important meeting,
The Stand-up is a meeting, often time boxed to 15 minutes, to encourage communication between team members battling away to meet the sprint objectives. It is similar to, but not as restricted as, the daily scrum which is a collaborative planning session inspecting the progress of the back-log towards the committed goal and making modifications if needed. Although the daily Stand-up facilitates a common understanding of the current status, it is not a status meeting. Instead, purpose is to share anticipated work to achieve the teams goal until the next stand-up, and creating the opportunity to ask for help or collaborate.
Alternatively, this might help to make it work
- Be there. The Stand-up will start whether you are there or not, but you are expected to to be there. And on time. Remember, 3 minutes early is early, 1 minute early I on time and on time is too late. Try to be on time.
- Focus your sharing on progress towards the sprint goal.
- What did you do yesterday; i.e. what part of the sprint objective did you complete yesterday?
- What do you plan to do today, i.e. what part of the spring objective do you plan to finish today?
- Highlight dependencies & seek support. Make sure those who block your progress are aware of it (you can maybe have a quick discussion immediately after the Stand-up), and that those who can support you in making progress are aware of this as well. Note, this may need a bit of preparation.
A good Stand-up is an effective way to learn the current progress of every team member, align team members around the sprint goals and to address any short-term challenges that prevent team members from proceeding with their tasks.