The stand-up is a meeting which takes place every working day at the same place and time standing up. Members of the team answer three questions:
Q: Why do we stand up? A: We stand up so that we aren’t tempted to go on too long. Stand-ups should be 20 minutes long at the most.
Q: Why do we just answer these three question? A: The aim of stand-up is to focus on what’s just been done, what’s about to be done and anything preventing progress. But there needs to be some room to mention things which are directly related to the team that don’t come out of answering the three questions. A team member has overheard that one of the major stakeholders has has a heart-attack? That’s relevant. One of the team members has a very sick cat that he’s been up with all night? Not relevant.
Q: Do we really have to stand up? A: If you’re in the same room, it’s better if you do. Obviously if you can’t stand up (if you’re in a wheelchair) then don’t. If everyone is dialling in, then standing up is optional, but stand-up format meetings can be very effective for distributed teams.