Do your developers roll their eyes at daily standups? Can you tell they are not present during the meeting? If you ask a software developer what their favourite part of their job is, they certainly wouldn’t say sitting in meetings to define requirements and estimations.
On average, software and delivery teams spend on average 31 hours a month attending unproductive meetings. This is why your software developers are dragging their feet to get to the daily stand-up. Never mind trying to run effective standups with distributed teams, as this requires new tools and approaches.
So how do we get our software and delivery teams to contribute to meetings? Firstly, we need to ask the question of how to turn daily standups from a checkbox item into a meaningful routine that helps you align your development team, stay on top of projects, streamline workflows, and increase productivity?
Daily standups are typically between 5 to 15 minutes. Those 15 minutes should consist of focused and meaningful discussions, yet they can often turn into generic status meetings that miss the mark of what a standup is all about.
Here’s how you can keep your teams engaged in standups, keeping your projects on schedule and your teams productive, even if you’re managing teams across various time zones.
Your daily standups should not exceed 15 minutes. This time limit helps everyone stay focused on the discussion and doesn’t leave room for team members to deviate from the objectives. It is important for the team leader to ensure that every team member understands the purpose of the daily standup and structure their updates according to its goal. The team leader also needs to monitor the conversation when necessary to keep everyone on track.
Standups are only as good as the information being shared during the meeting. The team attending the meetings should come prepared to participate; it should not just be a status update, but a platform to ask questions and any help needed to achieve the team’s goals.
Software and delivery teams tend to work in silos. Standups are an easy way to promote collaboration and provide opportunities for the team to discuss challenges and successes.
To avoid derailment and ensure all meeting expectations are met, a team leader needs to be appointed. Some teams would prefer to rotate leadership, which ca help them improve engagement and gain different perspectives. Other teams would prefer to appoint one team leader who moderates each daily standup to keep conversations on track.
Meetings are generally no good if team members don’t remember what was asked of them. Team members should take notes during their daily standups and follow up on discussion points and action items based on the standup. ScrumBuddy assists teams by guiding key discussions, ensuring a clear and understanding of the criteria amongst team members. ScrumBuddy reduces the amount of back and forth meetings by keeping track of all steps within the development process.
Running an effective standup isn’t always straightforward. Teams often face several challenges:
Lack of Focus: Standups can easily go off-topic, leading to wasted time and lost productivity.
Inconsistent Participation: Not all team members may be equally engaged, leading to gaps in communication and understanding.
Unaddressed Blockers: Potential roadblocks might not be identified or discussed adequately, causing delays.
Redundant Information: Standups can sometimes rehash old information instead of focusing on new updates and progress.
ScrumBuddy addresses these challenges head-on, ensuring your standups are efficient, focused, and productive.
Integrated Platform: ScrumBuddy provides a centralized platform where all team members can update their status and report blockers. This ensures everyone is on the same page.
Interactive Dashboard: With real-time data visualization, team members can quickly see progress, upcoming tasks, and any issues that need attention.
Action Items: ScrumBuddy automatically records action items and assigns them to relevant team members. This ensures accountability and follow-through on identified tasks and blockers.
Daily Summaries: After the standup, ScrumBuddy generates a summary of discussed points and next steps, keeping everyone informed and aligned.
AI Assistance: ScrumBuddy’s AI prompts team members with questions to ensure thorough updates. For example, it might ask, “Are there any blockers you’re currently facing?” or “What progress did you make on your assigned task yesterday?”
Inclusive Participation: The tool encourages input from all team members, ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard and contributing to the discussion.
Performance Tracking: ScrumBuddy tracks historical data on team performance, helping identify patterns and areas for improvement. This can be invaluable for retrospectives and continuous improvement.
Blocker Analysis: By analyzing recurring blockers, ScrumBuddy helps teams proactively address issues before they become significant roadblocks.
Teams that integrate ScrumBuddy into their standups experience the following benefits:
Increased Productivity: With a structured agenda and clear action items, standups become more efficient, leaving more time for actual development work.
Better Communication: Real-time collaboration and automated follow-ups ensure that important information is communicated effectively.
Proactive Problem-Solving: Early identification and resolution of blockers lead to smoother project progression and fewer delays.
Continuous Improvement: By leveraging historical insights, teams can continuously refine their processes and enhance performance.
To answer this, distributed teams can use asynchronous standup tools or adjust the meeting time to overlap with as many team members’ working hours as possible. Additionally, using ScrumBuddy’s real-time collaboration and daily summaries ensures that all team members, regardless of time zone, stay informed and can contribute to the discussion.
To address this, it’s important to understand the root cause of the lack of participation. One strategy is to rotate the role of the standup leader among team members, which can increase engagement and responsibility. Another approach is to have one-on-one check-ins to understand any issues or barriers to participation. Using ScrumBuddy’s AI prompts can also ensure everyone is prompted to provide input, encouraging participation.
ScrumBuddy can be integrated with existing project management tools like Jira, Trello, or GitHub, allowing teams to import their current workflows and project data seamlessly. This integration ensures that teams do not need to switch tools completely but can augment their existing processes with ScrumBuddy’s advanced features for better standup meetings and project management.
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