Practice 3. Daily Standup MeetingsHold a standup meeting the same time every day that is attended by the entire teamincluding businesspeople. The meeting should take an absolute maximum of 15 minutes (standing helps encourage this). The daily standup meeting is important for sustainable development because it helps to get issues out in the open each day, which helps to ensure that people aren't blocked for long periods of time and that everyone on the team is aware of what everyone else is doing. The traditional alternative is typically a weekly or monthly status meeting, and the problem with these meetings is that issues are often raised too late, that they're too long, and that the critical topics don't get raised. In a daily standup meeting, each person answers three questions:
Keep track of time and limit discussion to ensure that the meeting finishes quickly. Invariably, issues come up during the meeting that can be dealt with immediately after the scrum by those who are interested. Standup meetings are highly effective at gathering status, getting important issues out into the open, and encouraging collaboration among the team. The most effective way to solve problems when more than one person needs to be involved is face-to-face rather than in e-mail; the standup meeting, and the collaboration that happens immediately after, is an aid to the critical issues being dealt with face-to-face immediately. It is also important that daily standups lead to solving the problems of the moment immediately after the standup is finished. Weekly status report meetings are not nearly as effective because many problems are no longer immediate and the delay is a potential killer of team momentum. Likewise, e-mail can have a similar effect because there is a disconnect between the raising of the problem and any possible solution. Of course, there are always impromptu meetings, and some problems will still require these, but the existence of the daily standup means that team members know there is a forum where they can get these issues out in the open easily.
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