Daily meeting

Performed properly, it is a great way for the team to avoid wasted effort and to succeed as a real team rather than some individuals getting ahead in their activities whilst others lag behind.

I've tried daily stand up meetings with "teams" where the members worked on different deliverables. That never worked because few people were interested in anything but what they were working on.

How do people feel? I don't know how other people feel. What they do is work together to a cause they believe in.

Luis

Lots of meeting that extend for more than an hour, could become unproductive. So here is what I suggest:

1- Do meetings only when necessary.
2- Invite only the people involved.
3- Prepare an agenda and stick to it.

I always prefer weekly or bi-weekly meetings but if daily meeting is required, limit it to 30 Minutes at most.

RK

Hello Luis,

I think you are referring to daily stand ups. I found this type of meetings really valuable it gives the team a quick update on what was accomplished, what you will be working on that day and more important if there are any obstacles. The session is for the entire team. I found them valuable and they save time.

I would agree with the general consensus that daily standups can be valuable but like most tools at our disposal today. it is about doing it right. When done right it is great, when done wrong it is really horrible. It is important to remember why there is such a thing in the first place. It is not due to Agile, or Scrum, because the concept existed before Agile was formalized. Somebody came up with the idea to make long meetings uncomfortable so that people will get on with it (EP?). I remember many different versions of 'stand-ups' where people would think of additional ways to add discomforts, even one where you were required to 'plank'. Not sure if that really worked :)

Dear Stéphane
Thank you for sharing this opinion.

What could be done to get them to think and work as a whole instead of the sum of the parts?

Are you referring to a daily meeting (where-in each and every point discussed is documented and someone tracks it down for compliance and obedience) or are you referring to a daily team-briefing ?
If there is a daily meeting that runs beyond 15 minutes every day - its eventually bound to end up being either - boring &/or being unnecessarily adding to pressure, because :
a. You would be documenting who attended - any one unable to attend is being seen in a negative frame.
b. You would be documenting the minutes of meet - asking for everyone to read / acknowledge / follow
c. You would be archiving this for future use - now thats 22 (days in a month) X 1 document (with atleast 1 point in it) X 5 months (assuming your project runs that long) == 110 documents in less than 6 months!!! Who is going to read all this in the future ?

On the Contrary - a daily team-briefing (with a duration less than 15 minutes) might help in multiple ways :
a. Only - challenges discussed and documented &/or best practices highlighted and appreciated.
b. Whoever present briefs in short to the one who is not.
c. If no specific issue / points to be discussed the briefing is adjourned within 5 mins
d. Any major challenge / issue is noted but taken up at a later discussion or as a separate case with only key stakeholders involved.

P.S. - I personally found it tedious and boring to read my own description here - so would the team I guess. So I might want to avoid daily meetings beyond 15 minutes.