How to have effective stand-up meetings to maximize productivity

Mismanaged stand up meetings end up wasting time and killing productivity. If stand ups go too long and drawn out, people will stop paying attention. Here's how to have stand-up meetings correctly and efficiently so you can get most out of them as well as your team:

1. Duration: Aim for 15 minutes maximum, the size of the team could make this longer or shorter. There are a few exceptions, but remember that this meeting is to deliver a status not a debugging session or a time to hash out a feature request with a stakeholder.
2. Format: Each developer, designer or attendee answers three questions:
   • What did you accomplish yesterday?
   • What are you working on today?
   • Are there any blockers? If yes, who can help you or what needs to be done to unblock you. Take those discussions off to another meeting.
3. Timing: Start on time. Nag people who are late with a Slack or Teams message. I'm late to meetings all the time because I'm in a flow working on a task so a nudge from someone always helps me break out and get to the meeting.
4. Focus: Identify blockers, don't solve them. Schedule separate discussions for complex issues or anything that falls outside the three questions.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

1. The focus should be on team coordination, removing blockers and aligning the team, not reporting progress to upper management, gathering requirements or trying to figure out a bug.
2. Problem-solving or debugging sessions: The other people on the call who are not connected to the problem will be unnecessarily tied up during these sessions. This is a waste of time for them, take it offline to a new meeting.
3. Allowing tangents: People love to talk. They love to talk about topics they care about. Stay on topic. Park discussions for later.

Implementation

1. Communicate the format clearly to everyone. If planning sessions start to creep up, remind the team to take this offline.
2. Enforce the rules consistently across the team. No exceptions for senior staff or management. Everyone follows the same rules.
3. Review and adjust as needed. This is a process to feel out the team and create your own dynamic.

Expected Outcomes

1. Increased developer, designer and team member productivity.
2. Everyone on the team is involved and paying attention.
3. Improved team communication between everyone on the team.
4. Faster identification and resolution of blockers.
5. More time for actual work.

Stand-ups are tools to get things done and make sure everyone is on the same page. They should enable work, not hinder it. If your stand-ups aren't boosting productivity, you're doing them wrong and it's time to fix something.