Stand-up

For June, the monthly Virtual Coffee, a developer community, challenge is to build in public. As part of this we are using Stand-up to keep each other informed on our progress. I wrote a brief introduction to stand-up for the group. I thought I could expand it in to a post here. SEO branding tip, reuse the content you create.

dc's harley quinn telling a joke. — Not that kind of stand-up

What is Stand-up?

A series of daily meeting with set questions to give a quick update on your current progress. Usually held a start of the day so all team members can get a quick update on where everyone is. sThere is a set time limit, around 15 minutes, and only one person talks at a time. This is often controlled by having a focus object like a book. Only the person holding the object is allowed to speak when they are done they pass the object around. Our Bootcamp TAs recommended the item be heavy or unwieldy so no one will want to hold it too long. We used a broken chair arm.

The questions are.

What did you do yesterday?
What are you doing today?
Do you have any blockers?

What did you do yesterday?

What did you accomplish yesterday or since the last update? Did you meet your goal? What did you learn?

What are you doing today?

What do you plan to do today. Any particular goals you want to met before the end of day.

Do you have any blockers?

A blocker is something keeping you from your goal. A problem you need some help to resolve. Anything team mates can help with. Team members can give you some quick tips. For more involved answers you can set up a one on one discussion outside of the stand-up. By using a phrase like "Let's talk about this more after the meeting."

Everyone should get a chance to announce where they stand and if they need help. Over all these should be quick focused meetings to keep the group informed of any progress. In larger companies departments may do their own stand-up and then send a representative to a larger company or division stand-up.