Daily meeting

Luis, as many have mentioned here for toolbox meeting every day in the start of the day not more than 10 - 15 minutes just quick review for safety , new business / instruction, review backlog if escalating on materials are required
but if you have a bigger issue to discuss then calling meeting for involved stakeholders with predefined agenda time limit between 1/2- 1 hour depends on the issue. have someone to write the minutes and email it for later follow up.

Hi Luis,
I do not think that people should be treated as cyborgs; program them to show up daily for 15 minutes on defacto status meetings, no matter how you call it. Fifteen minutes of meetings are never 15 minutes. People will stop working at least 10 minutes before the meeting because they do not want to be interrupted. On way back, they will talk. Those meetings will efficiently last at least 30 minutes each day. Would this approach work on a team of expensive consultants; they clock US$350/Hr?

As being a software developer myself for many years, it is nothing more stressful than being interrupted for a meeting in the middle of the work. That may answer your question, is this practice sustainable, perhaps if you threaten your team, of not being compliant. That would be a stellar example of valuing people more highly than processes or tools. Probably the Agile mindset is not applicable for the Scrum framework? How is it than an “Agile way” of delivering projects?

If the team member comes to you that day with an obstacle, how quickly could it be resolved? What happens with the work that day? Would it not be better to plan, and design the solution ahead, and foresee potential barriers?

Dear Riyadh
Thank you for participating in this reflection and for your opinion.

How do team members react to these two daily meetings?

In your opinion, is it sustainable in the medium and long term?

the daily meeting is not add pressure on the team, nor to audit the team performance. It is about transparent. Usually, the team member feel pressured in 2 cases.
o New team member who is not used to Daily meeting
o The weak team member who don’t perform as per the rest of the team

Every team member talk for 2-3 minutes about :

• What did you completed (since last meeting)
• What you will do (till next meeting)
• What is the challenges and issues that you are facing

I would only have daily meetings if their is a genuine need to have one that other forms of communication are not sufficient enough to give a status report and update on any bottlenecks experienced by members of the project team. Depending on the level of complexity of the projects, whether milestones are being met or missed or the loss of team members and their associated skills sets will decided whether daily meetings are required. Sometimes when a project falls behind schedule their is a rush to have as many meetings as possible to try to get the project back on track instead of focusing on what needs to be done and delivering upon it. Also different methodologies require such meetings, hence the name, daily stand-up in order to fact check everything that is going on. To summarise their should exist a escalation of channels of communication depending on what message needs to be delivered, to whom, its urgency and associated dependencies of the message.

Dear Luis,
The example I mentioned is prevalent in the consulting business. Typically, after the organization buys an off-the-shelve software, the next step is to create a combined team of external consultants and internal folks they will carry on the transition efforts. Cinching them daily for a “status meeting” is not necessary, neither economically viable.

You may have missed the irony in my statement. Enforcing daily meeting just for the “cause” introduces the worst possible form of micromanagement. It does not even matter what the meeting is called for. How does it stand against many Agile proclaimed principles, the one of them being value people more than processes and tools when you enforce process on them?

Furthermore, the concept of daily meetings is not “invented” by Agilists. It has been used for centuries in different settings, such as military, hospitals, construction, civil engineering, automotive industry, to name a few. How does it relates to software development, where the tasks are highly unpredictable? Does the construction worker decide on the spot what he or she will be working on that day?

No, I am not mistaken. Daily meetings are held in some organizations early morning, in some others at noontime. However, as a general principle, as later you got knowledge of impediments, as more difficult is to react to it. You can package in a way you like it. The concept stays the same.

To understand the “Agile manifesto,” you may think to search for supportive documents outside of a one-pager. Perhaps being familiar with a new development process (e.g. BAH), being informed about Agility Forum and content of “21st Century Manufacturing Enterprise Strategy” (Nagel, 1992). Furthermore, Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986 paper, Dr. Winston Royce's paper, “Managing the Development of Large Software Systems,” 1970, where he never mentioned the word “waterfall,” neither conceptually references it. You may notice that only the shortlist of referenced materials may quickly surpass multiple times the one-pager Agile manifesto. Many may still believe in being Agile experts, by faithfully repeating the content of four short sentences and “12 principles.”

Sorry for the inconvenience I caused, but I will be out of here for my further comments. I would not like to disturb further discussions.
Cheers!

Daily meetings are good for when risk and uncertainty exist, hence they are popular in teams running agile. If a project enters the state of having high risk or uncertainty then meetings are good for the PM to take action and move, otherwise they become just another repetitive meeting.