Daily meetings in Agile development: 15 minutes, without which there is no release

Most IT companies are accustomed to daily internal meetings, status meetings, or short stand-ups that are designed to streamline processes and synchronize the work of all team members. Optimally, if such meetings will not exceed 15-20 minutes.



In Agile-development today without rallies anywhere. However, working meetings for Scrum, Kanban or XP teams are different and have their own characteristics. In this material, we understand what distinguishes stand up in Scrum and Kanban, and also argues in support of the need for daily meetings, as an important growth driver in the company.

Any internal assembly is an element of culture of any organization. It does not matter what the purpose of the meeting is: to discuss the release of new postage stamps or the status of tasks in the iterations before the release of your product - each meeting brings together a team and provides the principle of transparency of work.
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It is important not to create the appearance of a useful effect and not to hold meetings for the sake of a “tick”. The status meeting of the team should be beneficial, because even 15 minutes of wasted working time of each rally participant can result in a decent amount for the company.

According to statistics provided by one American company, the majority of daily working meetings are scheduled for 11 am and 63% of them start without an advance-prepared agenda. 33% of meetings held are considered ineffective by the staff themselves.

Unfortunately, the last big figure can reach any company: from the “ancient” bureaucratic corporation to a young startup, in which the role of such meetings is equally important.

In Agile-teams, by and large, the global meaning of the daily meeting with the team is to quickly, efficiently and reliably bring tasks to their completion. This status meeting is often called stand up, which makes sense a “short meeting.”

Project managers or product managers, who most often organize such meetings and care about how to avoid routine tasks , should be constantly monitored so that during stand up some team members do not turn into useless extras. Here are some examples:

• “False workaholic” is a very “busy” employee who cannot be torn off from a laptop, because he must have dozens of important matters during the meeting. The presence of such a member of the team brings no sense. It is not surprising if such a "hard worker" will at this time simply correspond in social networks, pretending to listen attentively.
• "Sleeping with open eyes . " For such a member of the team, the next stand up is a simple formality, the need to go somewhere and each time to invent something for the sake of a tick. This is often just the case whether it pretends to listen, but if you ask again what has just been said - everything will become very clear.
• “Upstart” is a very active employee who likes to criticize and comment non-constructively, just for everyone to appreciate his active position.
• "PR from the plow . " An employee who every time needs or does not need to focus on their work and its importance for the project / product, without bringing the benefits of general discussion.
• “Distracting” - moves away from the topic of the meeting, sharply switching to another topic, for example, discussing the budget of the project.

Daily meetings in Scrum and Kanban teams: what is the difference?

Agile methodologies for the development of Scrum and Kanban are distinguished not only by their essence, but also by the team’s daily meetings.

The main goal in the daily rally in the Scrum team is to track whether the team can perform all iterations, or as soon as possible to identify the reasons why they can not be performed. Stand up in Scrum is people oriented. During a short rally, each team member takes turns in voicing his past day results and the current status of the tasks, promising the team to accomplish specific tasks today. If there are any problems - they are also voiced.

The purpose of the rally in Kanban is to minimize the time spent on the task at all its stages. Kanban meetings are not mandatory, but are advisory in nature, because they can actually influence the course of tasks. The rally focuses on a specific board and identifying those bottlenecks (eng. Bottlenecks).

• Moderator collects participants. Most often, this is a project manager or product manager team.
• The whole team focuses on the board. If the board is an online tool in the product management service and the team is distributed in different places, a general call is organized.
• The team “goes through” tasks from right to left from top to bottom, discusses options for moving the task to the next stage as soon as possible. The right word has any in the team.
• The most rightmost column is the completion of the work. Tasks that are closest to completion have priority value. The faster the task goes into the rightmost column, the less time will be spent on it (English lead time).
• The moderator clarifies what prevents you from transferring a specific task to the done column. The reasons and assumptions are expressed. If a task is blocked, it is marked and accompanied by a comment about why it is blocked. And so for each task. Tasks that were postponed earlier are “sorted out” by team members. Each takes tasks into work so that by the next meeting these tasks are transferred to the next column.

So the main difference is:

Scrum rally focuses on people, Kanban rally focuses on tasks

The classic questions of the Scrum meeting can also be asked during the Kanban meeting, but again with a focus on the tasks, not the team members:

• What prevents the task from moving?
• How does the task progress in the flow?
• What can be improved and how?

Is it difficult to switch from Daily Scrum to Daily Kanban?

If the decision is made to switch from Scrum to Kanban, then adaptation to the new format of meetings should go smoothly. The discussion format is changing, but the result of saving time very soon becomes obvious.

How to avoid "hanging" tasks?

First, it is important to understand why tasks “hang” and take action to speed them up efficiently. The reasons for the “slowing down” release of tasks may be as follows:

• Often, when the task is about to be completed, it ceases to be a priority for the contractor and he automatically switches to new tasks. Thus, a task that was not fully completed can “hang” for a long time.
• Often, many tasks are “stuck” at the confirmation stage by the product owner or product manager. This happens because the latter may be busy with other tasks, and the current task remains a step away from the release. Frequent Kanban meetings help to see such unfinished tasks in time and bring them to the end.
• Work fills the time that is allotted to it. All tasks will hang in any part of the board until the iteration is complete. And even if a certain task is done earlier, it may simply not get to the last stage. And since the purpose of the Kanban rally is to reduce the time spent working on a task, it is during the stand up that you can and should “push” the tasks before the release.

How to optimize the rally. Or what prevents the effective stand up?

Each participant of the daily stand up in any Agile team should be guided by certain rules that will help not to turn the meeting into a routine, but into an effective event:

• Do not be late . Each time a fixed time for an internal meeting will eventually become a must-have event and will not be forgotten by team members. This should take care of the moderator, as well as to organize a meeting at a convenient time for all. In many IT companies, it is customary to struggle with tardiness with the introduction of petty fines from “learning a poem to the next rally” to a small amount in the piggy bank for common business.
• Do not turn stand up into a meeting . The format of a short meeting in Kanban involves a quick discussion of standing matters. Some creative teams “pass the word” to the next one with the help of a game ball, someone uses a horn or microphone, and in some teams the rally is held in the bar (of course, by common agreement).
• Come empty-handed . It is recommended to leave laptops and mobile phones at your workplace. 15 minutes of Kanban-meeting is enough to rest your eyes.
• Do not solve major problems . The short stand up is not intended for large problematic discussions; separate time should be allocated for them.
• Do not report , but share information. Kanban stand up is not a report to the manager, but a team meeting, so you need to be able to share information with everyone.
• Develop oratorical skills . Avoid fuzzy language and understandable to express their thoughts is not given to everyone. It is worth learning this, especially considering that the time format of the meeting is limited. It is often not easy to put a complex technical story into a simple, accessible story. Then it is important to voice the most important, leaving the technical details for later.
• Be prepared . Before the status of the meeting you need to know and clearly understand the status of your task, and not in a hurry to remember what is there and how.
• Respect the crowd . Often, telling their status or expressing an opinion about the task, the nearby rally participants simply start talking about life, disturbing others.

Conclusion

Any productive gathering should end with fresh ideas, clear solutions and a short-term action plan. The product manager and all participants return to the workplace with a full understanding of their status and the status of the project as a whole, make the necessary changes in their project management platform .

Do you pay enough attention to the meetings within the team? How is your typical stand up rally? Share in the comments!