Standup meetings are a great way for team members to go over what they did the previous day and what they will be doing in the next working hours.

In this guide, you will find some useful information about daily standups, how they are done and why it is recommended to boost team productivity.

Going forward. . . What is a standup meeting?

It is a daily 15-20 minutes timed event allocated to share work progress and promote team alignment. A standard standup meeting must include the following questions which are:

• What did the team members do yesterday?
• What are they doing today?
• Are they experiencing any blockers or hiccups?
• What can be done to help?

Although quick and give little to no room for unrelated work chats, daily standups are an efficient way to track productivity.

Why are daily standup meetings important?

Through this short event, teams can highlight obstacles or areas of concern and then collaborate to develop solutions. In addition, it keeps everyone informed about who has completed a task, who is yet to complete a task, who is facing blockers, and what is left undone. Your team will remain focused on its objectives in this manner.

The three pillars of a daily standup are– “did, doing, blockers” and anything other than that is addressed at a later date. This is done to prevent a long meeting time and to keep the flow moving to avoid disruption of thoughts and possible solutions.

Remote teams with diverse time zones are advised to pick a suitable time that works for all members, however, for on-site teams, it is expected to hold the meeting in the mornings. While on-site teams can make use of the conference room, remote teams can hold daily standup meetings on platforms like google meet or zoom.

The perfect standup meeting exists

Unarguably, the major goal of a standup meeting is to ensure team alignment and synchronization, stay updated, and tackle rising issues. Hence, the following are tips for a productive standup:

• Updates must be short and quick, especially with large teams.
• Team members should not fail to mention problems during a standup.
• Avoid long discussions, especially those that are directed at another member. A request to have a lengthy discussion with the team member afterward is advised.
• Pleasantries and friendly chats should only take a few seconds to a minute.
• Attention is required as each member drops their updates.
• Don’t try to solve every problem on the spot, acknowledge and follow up afterwards, to maintain time.

Sometimes you may be required to limit voice/video meetings during busy periods. This is something we adopt at Acumen Digital, even though we carry out a daily standup, two out of the five days are done offline. Team members are, however, required to send written updates on the company’s communication channel, still following the same rules to ensure productivity.