Project Management

Please login or join to subscribe to this thread

What's a best practice for handling a bi-weekly standup meeting?

linkedin twitter facebook   Communications Management   Information Technology   Leadership  
avatar
Jeremy Morphis PMO Manager| Arkansas Children's Hospital Little Rock, Ar, United States
We're hosting a 2/week standup call focused primarily on teams in "Serious" status. How do we make this meeting the most effective and efficient it can be without also hurting morale?
Sort By:
< 1 2 >
avatar
Saket Bansal Gurgaon, Haryana, India
Now a days most of the project management approaches promote doing meetings, at the same time if meetings are not facilitated well they can result in waste of time and energy. So the key for any great meeting is facilitation , the facilitator should ensure
1. The meeting has agreed agenda and goal , all participant has common goal from the meeting.
2. Meeting facilitator ensure to include right people in the meeting.
3. Once goal and agenda is clear and you have right people , facilitator need to ensure all contribute to the discussion , this needs usages of some of the facilitation tools and practices.
4. Facilitator ensure we have agreed process to define what to discuss and how long to discuss and how to make decision.
5. Facilitator summarize the meeting at various stages so all know where we are heading and some outcome comes at the end.
avatar
Aaron Porter
Community Champion
IT Director| Blade HQ Payson, UT, United States
Acknowledge the situation without pointing fingers, and treat it like a normal stand-up. Have individuals answer the following:

What have you been working on, since the last meeting?
What will you work on between now and the next meeting?
What obstacles do you need help with?

You may also need a larger discussion on progress toward resolving the problem(s).
avatar
Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
The only best practice you have to folow is: plan de meeting, where plan is to answer five main questions: What? When? Who? How? and Cost? if apply.
avatar
Edward Daniels Project Manager| Independent Glen Burnie, Md, United States
Have an agenda.
Address the 5W1H (who, what, where, when, why, how).
1. Where are we?
2. What is next?
3. Who are we assigning?
4. When is it due?
5. Why are we doing .....?
6. How will this be achieved?
(arrange this as you see fit, whatever doesn't apply, take it out)
No more than 10 slides if you are going to use PowerPoint slides.
Have a plan of action to follow up.
Voila! you are done....
avatar
Naomi Caietti Senior Project Manager | ePMO | Higher Education | Healthcare & IT| Linkedin.com/In/NaomiCaietti
Jeremy:
Standup meetings were really meant to do three things:

Be lead by the team not the PM.
Brief; only 15 minutes.
Focus on a specific topic, status update etc.

As Aaron mentions above it's a brief conversation. It's a lean approach and you mention the word "serious". I'm not sure this is the right meeting type for what you want to accomplish. Is this your intent to be brief or are you looking for way to set agenda or topic led discussions? Facilitated may be the direction you want to go but share more detail.
...
1 reply by Jeremy Morphis
Apr 25, 2017 3:31 PM
Jeremy Morphis
...
I should have been more clear: the teams whose status is considered "serious" (severely behind in task completion) are expected to provide daily updates with the focus being on identifying roadblocks preventing them from catching up
avatar
Wade Harshman Scrum Master| GDIT Indianapolis, In, United States
Jeremy,
If you find that your standups are a drag, rearrange the order of questions so they end on a positive note. List impediments up front, for example, to get them out of the way and end the meeting with a focus on what will be accomplished next. You could also add time for new ideas or things that went well since the last meeting. This is not a simple waste of time for the purpose of feeling good, it's worth sharing new ideas. Not all lessons learned have to come from failures.
avatar
Mike Dewing Senior Project Manager / Program Manager| MLD Holdings Ltd. Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
If your focus is on those projects in "Serious" status then perhaps a stand up may not be the best approach. If it is serious, they need to be addressed and an honest and straight forward conversation needs to occur on what the issues are, what needs to happen to address those issues and who is going to do just that. Follow up on the items is critical and perhaps should not wait two more weeks.
...
1 reply by Jeremy Morphis
Apr 28, 2017 12:02 PM
Jeremy Morphis
...
Sorry, I should have been more specific. We focus on them because they have the most roadblocks or struggles with their tasks, whether it's just workload or other dependencies, so we try to give them the most time to communicate with the other teams to ensure they (the teams in Serious status) get what they need for that day.

We have other meetings dedicated to problem solve and to determine course correction paths.
avatar
Vincent Guerard Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
It was already pointed out by Naomi and Andrew, Stand-up is a short meeting.

In wanting to focus on team in "Serious" status, is it the right meeting format?
What are the reasons for the meeting? Get a status update? Get solution to the "Serious" condition of the project?
avatar
Naomi Caietti Senior Project Manager | ePMO | Higher Education | Healthcare & IT| Linkedin.com/In/NaomiCaietti
Duplicate message deleted. :)
...
1 reply by Jeremy Morphis
Apr 28, 2017 12:02 PM
Jeremy Morphis
...
Thank you!
avatar
Jeremy Morphis PMO Manager| Arkansas Children's Hospital Little Rock, Ar, United States
Apr 25, 2017 12:47 PM
Replying to Naomi Caietti
...
Jeremy:
Standup meetings were really meant to do three things:

Be lead by the team not the PM.
Brief; only 15 minutes.
Focus on a specific topic, status update etc.

As Aaron mentions above it's a brief conversation. It's a lean approach and you mention the word "serious". I'm not sure this is the right meeting type for what you want to accomplish. Is this your intent to be brief or are you looking for way to set agenda or topic led discussions? Facilitated may be the direction you want to go but share more detail.
I should have been more clear: the teams whose status is considered "serious" (severely behind in task completion) are expected to provide daily updates with the focus being on identifying roadblocks preventing them from catching up
< 1 2 >

Please login or join to reply

Content ID:
ADVERTISEMENTS

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."

- Janis Joplin

ADVERTISEMENT

Sponsors