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Comment by throwaway9191aa | Hacker News Reader

These three questions are intended to keep standups short. I haven't, personally, been on a team that sticks to this format. It always ends up with individuals talking about their individual implementation thoughts on whatever they are working on. During this time, others zone out, missing anything that could be important. Nobody learns anything, and nobody is able to fully concentrate on their tasks.

I purposefully schedule meetings after our standup to make sure I cut it off after 30 minutes. Our team of 11 will go for almost an hour if nobody cuts people off.

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I had 8 people in standup today, the whole meeting took 4 minutes - mostly because of 2 people who had some after meeting news to share. As the team tech lead I need to keep track of what everyone is doing and just looking at stories in progress isn't enough to know if they are making progress or I need to jump in. (most of the time they are or they ask questions after the meeting). There is value in everyone knowing how the current story is progressing, but it should only be a few minutes. I run my standup 3x week as I don't need this daily, but I need to keep track that things are happening.

This is the way.

If a standup goes longer than 2 ish minutes a person, it's no longer a "stand up". Pull up a chair, sit down and chat, you're having a meeting.

The 3 questions could be answered in 1 to 2 sentences... the check in is for every one to see everyone else's face to inform secondary meetings.

There's many reasons I have my team do our standup in a designated chat room rather than in person.

One reason is because it eliminates facilitation on my part. I don't have to cut people off and make them stay on topic.

Ouch. 15 minutes is the rule. 30 minutes is way too long. I was in only one team that followed the rule, and after 15 minutes people would start leaving the room regardless of whether others are talking. If someone had a habit of speaking too much, he was coached.

When we were on site, we would try to schedule the room such that someone else had a booking at the 15 minute mark - so you had no choice but to keep it in that window.

This is easily solved by just having a facilitator who actually facilitates. Whether that's a scrum master, a manager, a team lead, or just a member of the team who isn't afraid to cut people off, it really is not that hard to keep standups to 15 minutes, maybe 20 for a team that big.

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